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I

COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING
A PUBLIC CHARGE OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

‘IN A POLITICAL AND GOVERNMENTAL-FRAMEWORK

by

John Murray

. A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
College of Cqmmunication Arts

1962

PREFACE

The author gratefully acknowledges the help of many
people, without whose assistance this manuscript would have
been much harder to complete. Among these many, specific
acknowledgment is given to John C. Mackie, Commissioner,
Michigan State Highway Department, for opening all pertinent
files to the author; Frederick E. Tripp, Director for
Administration, Michigan State Highway Department; Howard E.
Hill, Managing Director, Michigan State Highway Department;
Al Kaufman, and Irving J. Rubin, Administrative Assistants
to Commissioner Mackie; Frederick Routh, former Executive
Secretary, Fair Employment Practices Commission of Michigan;
Marvin Tableman, Technical Editor, Michigan State Highway
Department; Zolton Perency, Executive Secretary to Governor
John B. Swainson; Neil Staebler, Democratic National Committee-
man for Michigan; Richard Miller, Administrative Assistant,
Governor Swainson; and W. Cameron Meyers, School of Journal-
ism, Michigan State University. Dr. Meyers as my adviser

deserves particular thanks for patience beyond the call of
duty 0 i

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TABLE

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . .

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .

I. THE ACCUSATION .

~ II. THE ENVIRONMENT .

OF CONTENTS

III. THE AGENCY'S ACTIONS . . . .

IV. THE EVALUATION .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . e . o .

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P.

ii

12

87

101

INTRODUCTION

This thesis is a qualitative analysis of an inter—
play of actions in which a major agency of state government
defended its integrity against an attack by a group of
legislators in a field of social and political sensitivity.
It is a story of journalistic judgment permeating the moves
and countermoves of the several plateaus of crisis brought
on by the attack. It is a study of public administration,
legislative relations, communications techniques, political
strategy, and the influence of the press upon an agency's
decisions. It is a case record of the interweaving of
public administration, public relations, and public policy.
It is a study of a series of activities solely from the
point of view of the agency. It is a confined interlude of
liniidents, with a beginning and an end.

.There are many things this thesis is not. It is not
a study of the newspaper reporting of the events; but many
newspaper references are included because the press coverage
had much to do with the public atmosphere in which the
agency‘s-moves were planned and made. Further, the agency's
appraisal of what the public knew was based on what the
agency's top management read in the newspapers.

It is not a story of the events as they appeared to
.the legislators involved. Their interpretation might indeed
l

2

be considerably different from the agency's. It is not a
study of the motives of the legislators. It is not a study
of a political campaign, although the author felt it .
necessary to include many references to politics and to a
specific election because these factors affected_the agency's
decisions. It is not a study of a Fair Employment Practices
Commission investigation, although an investigation was the
agency's most important countermove.

It is, rather, a microcosm of the way judgments of
what makes and moves public opinion affect public adminis-
tration. These judgments are made hourly in government,
varying only in the degree of press attention they receive,
which varies with the flow of news; and in the degree of
danger to an administrator or his agency if the judgment is
wrong, which varies with the subject matter and the person-
alities involved.

Successful leadership in public life requires an acute
judgment of what makes news, because public opinion is made
and moved by what it knows about public affairs; and what
it knows about public affairs comes through news channels.
That is the foundation premise under this narrative.

This narrative requires frequent use of the phrase
"Mackie and his staff." It is not possible to identify any
one person as responsible for group decisions; nor is it
possible without cluttering the manuscript endlessly with
names to define in each separate instance who composed the

term "staff." The reason is that it varied-~sometimes it

3

was the managing director, the director for administration,

the assistant attorney general assigned to the highway depart-

ment, the public relations director; at other times it was

any combination of two or several of these people, or others.
It would not be accurate to assume that staff

decisions were made at orderly meetings with agendas,

minutes, and formal motions. Staff consultations in the

meaning of this manuscript were frequently casual, in

corridors, or by telephone, dwelling on a single point for

quick advice and action.

I. THE ACCUSATION

On January 17, 1961, four members of the Michigan
House of Representatives introduced House Resolution No. 7
asking that a special committee be created "to investigate
evidence relating to racial discrimination in the employment
and promotional policies of the Michigan State Highway
Department.”1 The resolution claimed that the representa-
tives had evidence of such discrimination, and asked that a
five-member committee be set up to "function now and during
the interim between the 1961 and 1962 Regular Sessions."
Under the specific terms of the resolution, the committee
would not make its report until the 1962 Regular Session.
In short, the resolution set up an investigation mechanism
to last at least one year. The committee would be author-
ized to subpoena witnesses and to examine all records of the
MSHD.

The initiators of the resolution were Representatives
0. Roosevelt Diggs, Ninth District, Wayne County; David S.
Holmes, Jr., Eleventh District, Wayne COunty; Frederick
Yates, Fourth District, Wayne County; and Roger B. Townsend,
First District, Genesee County. The four are Democrats and

Negroes. Townsend was the main public spokesman for the

 

1Michigan, Journal of the House of Representatives,
7lst Legislature, Regular Session of 1961, p. 60.

u

5
group. Diggs was beginning his second term as a representa-
tive; Holmes was beginning his second term; Yates was
beginning his fourth term; and Townsend, his fifth term.2

The highway commissioner was, and is, John C. Mackie,
a Democrat, from the same county as Townsend. Michigan
uniquely in the United States elects its highway commissioner
for a four-year term at a state-wide regular election held*
in April of odd-numbered years. Mackie was first elected‘
in 1957, and had announced in December, 1960, his intention
to seek re-election. The nominating convention of the
Democratic Party would be held in Grand Rapids on February u,
just twenty-one days after the accusatory resolution was
presented in the legislature. '

The call for an investigation was duly reported in
Michigan newspapers and on radio and television newscasts.
The play of the initial story ranged from an eight-column
banner headline on the "Press State Page" section of the
Grand Rapids Press. of January 17:,

Dem Solon Charges Mackie With Racial Bias
to a three-column headline on page one of the Lansing Stgtg’
Journal of January 17:

Discrimination Charged
In Highway Department

to a one-column headline on the ”Second Front Page" of the

Detroit Free Press of January 18:

 

2Michigan, Secretary of State, Michigan Manual, 1961-
1962, pp. 19u-210.

 

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Mackie
Accused of
Race Bias
The United Press International news report was
representative of the general coverage.
Lansing-~(UPI)--Charges of racial discrimi-
nation in employment and promotional practices were

leveled Tuesday against the State Highway Depart-
ment.

The second paragraph said the accuser was Townsend,
and the third paragraph said that Townsend was a Negro
legislator.

The Detroit Courier, the Michigan edition of the
Pittsburgh Chronicle, national Negro weekly newspaper, had
the story in its edition dated January 21, available in

Detroit on January 19. The Detroit Courier lead implied that

 

discrimination was a fact:

Discrimination in the Michigan State Highway
Department will face its stiffest test as a result
of a resolution introduced in the State Legislature
Tuesday requesting that a House committee be
appointed to conduct a "full investigation of racial
discrimination within the department."

Unlike stories in the daily press, the Detroit
Courier contained extensive quotes from Representative
Townsend. Among his comments was this:

We are laughing at the Southland and

pointing our fingers at public officials there--
when right at home, we have complaints just as

vicious in regards to fair play in job promotion,
job hiring, and practices within a department.

 

3Grand Rapids Press, January 17, 1961, p. 21.

7

The Michigan Chronicle, a Negro weekly newspaper

 

published in Detroit, did not publish the story that week, a

fact which the MSHD later used to its advantage.

I I . THE ENVIRONMENT

The Democratic Party in Michigan is committed
unequivocally to fair employment practices not only in a
series of platform statements, and in public statements by a
great number of Democratic state officials; but also through
specific legislative and administrative recommendations and
actions particularly since 19u9, when Governor G. Mennen
Williams began the first of his six successive two-year terms.
The Michigan Declaration, a formal statement of Democratic
Party principles, adopted by the Democratic State Convention
on June 2, 1956, states one of the party's goals to be to
make discrimination " .'. . as rare as human slavery, and
as promptly prosecuted in due process by law."1 Williams was
largely responsible for the adoption in 1955 of-a Fair
Employment Practices Act in Michigan.2 Governor John B.
Swainson, Governor Williams' successor, was equally identified
in full support of anti-discrimination measures.

To accuse a Democratic state official of practicing
or countenancing discrimination in employment was, therefore,

a serious matter politically, since it put him at odds with

 

1Democratic State Central Committee of Michigan,

Michi an Declaration, (Lansing: Democratic State Central
Committee, I956}.

2Frank McNaughton, Mennen Williams of Michi an
(New York: Oceana Publications,‘Inc., I9607, p. 225.

9
his party's official policy. To accuse the chief executive
of an agency with u,soo employees of discrimination in
employment was an equally serious matter governmentally,
since it involved the integrity and competency of the agency
itself.
The seriousness of the charge was further compounded
by several factors:
1. The source, the object, and the timing of

the accusation taken together increased newspaper

interest in the charge. Four Negro legislators, all

Democrats, accusing a leading Democratic elected

official of discrimination shortly before the

nominating convention of his party, in a state where

Negroes constitute an important voting bloc within

the Democratic Party, is news to reporters of

government and politics. The accusation was made

in the first month of the first term of a new

governor, also a Democrat. Governor Swainson had

received preponderant majorities in Negro precincts

in the previous November general election, in some

cases 90 per cent of the precinct vote.3 "Every

breakdown in the integrity or the efficiency of

public service is news,"“ Leonard D. White has

 

3Michigan, Secretary of State, Michigan Manual,
1960-1961, pp. 598-615.

 

”Leonard D. White, The Study of Public Administration
(New York: Macmillan Co., 1992), p. 956.

10
pointed out. In this case, the accusation against
the integrity of the agency was heightened by
political factors:
But the Negro issue is never dormant in

American politics for the reason that the

Negroes more openly, more consciously, more

consistently than any other group turn to

politics as a remedy for their disabilities.

A good "race man" is a good race man in

politics above all, and an American Negro

political leader is more in the position of

an Irish Nationalist party member of Parlia-

ment than of an ordinary member of a normal

American party. He is a Republican or a

Democrat with a difference. He has to deliver

the goods in some tangible form to his race

brethern, and no plea of party loyalty will

serve him if he fails.5

2. The Negro population in Michigan had increased
dramatically in the previous decade, making this group
a rising social, economic and political force. From
1950 to 1960, Michigan's total pOpulation increased
19.7 per cent. The Negro p0pu1ation increased 62.2
per cent.6

3. Detroit Negroes were more than usually sensi-

tive about racial matters because charges of police
mishandling of Negroes were widespread at that
time. The degree of sensitiveness can be judged
from the opinion of political observers that police

mishandling of Negroes, or the belief that such

 

5D. W. Brogan, Politics in America (New York: Harper
8 Bros., 195a), p. 111.

6U. 3. Bureau of Census, U. 3. Census of Population:
1960. General Population CharacteriStics, Michigan.
(WaShington: U. S. Government’Printing Office, 1961).

 

11

mishandling existed, was a major element in the
defeat of the incumbent mayor, Louis C. Miriani, on
November 7, 1961, by Jerome P. Cavanaugh.7

u. Negroes were proportionately more numerous
among the unemployed. The rate of unemployment for
Negroes during the previous year was estimated to
be twice that of the white population.8 A special
study in 1961 reported that in Detroit, 39 per cent
of the Negro work force was unemployed.9 A charge
that a major agency of state government discriminated
against Negroes in employment, made at a time when
many Negroes were desperately in search of work,

could not be taken lightly.

 

7Detroit Free Press, November 8, 9, 12, 1961. Detroit
News, November 8, 9,‘l2, 1961. Michigan Chronicle (Detr01t5,
November 11, 1961.

81961 United States Commission on Civil Rights,
Report 3 (washingtOn: U. 8. Government Printing Uffice, 1961),
p. .

 

9Survey of Unemployment in Selected Urban League
Cities, 1961 (New York: National urban League,_1961).

III. THE AGENCY'S ACTIONS

The accusation shocked Mackie's policy-level staff
when Tom Shawver of the Associated Press called Thomas J.
Farrell, MSHD Public Information Officer at 11:00 A. M. on
January 17, to ask whether Mackie intended to make any reply.
The staff had no forewarning of the attack. The prevailing
,opinion among top management people was that the agency's
policies in employment were good.1 Mackie was at that
moment driving from Jackson to Lansing, having just dis-
entrained from New York where he had been to sign a
$25,000,000 highway bond issue. Farrell reported that no
comment was possible for this reason. The same answer was
given to subsequent calls from other newspapers. Some of
the first news stories therefore mentioned that "Mackie was
unavailable for comment."

Mackie arrived at the office at noon and a staff
meeting was held. His first reaction was anger. He wanted
a statement prepared to attack Townsend's motives in intro-
ducing the resolution, defying him to produce his evidence,
and demanding that he retract his resolution immediately.

Mackie said:

 

1Interview with Richard A. Ross, Personnel Director,
Michigan State Highway Department, Lansing, February 2, 1962.

12

13

I felt I had been stabbed by a friend. Townsend
had supported me in 1957 when I first sought the
nomination to be Highway Commissioner, and I had
been helpful to him whenever I properly could on
occasions since. Of course I was mad.

Mackie's staff argued against an attack statement,
and he agreed that such a move might rally other legislators
to Townsend's defense, to no gain for Mackie; and that it
might lead to several days of newspaper reports of Townsend-
Mackie exchanges. It was deemed necessary, however, to move
quickly with a statement of general denial in order that
those who read or heard news reports later that day and
'overnight would have an answer with the charge. This was the
first of many journalistic judgments which permeated the
agency's reactions. Mackie and his staff decided also to
move cautiously in public expressions for the next twenty-four
hours while attempts were made to find out what was Townsend's
alleged evidence. At 1:00 P. M. a press release was sent by
messenger to the press room in the Capitol.3 The statement
read:
Any charge that I practice discrimination in
employment is ridiculous. I'm sure that any fair
igfizifiy will demonstrate that this charge is not

The shortness of the release was deliberate. It was

designed to give last editions of afternoon newspapers an

 

2Interviewwith John C. Mackie, Commissioner, MSHD,
March 12, 1962.

. 3Interview with Thomas J. Farrell, Public Information
Officer, MSHD, March 12, 1962.

u . .
Press release,'January 17, 1961, files of motorist
services division, MSHD.

lu

easy insert into their already-set accusation stories, and
to give newscasts a short rebuttal. It was also designed to
establish the phrase "fair inquiry" to lay the groundwork
to charge that a legislative inquiry would be unfair, if this
became necessary.5

.Individual staff members then began calling members
of the staff of Governor Swainson, other elected state
officials, and individual newspaper reporters who might be
willing to give the agency more background than was then
available. At this time, Mackie and his staff had only the
press inquiries to go on. The text of the resolution was
notéavailable. Townsend had not provided extra copies for
the press, the usual procedure. Reporters had copied from
his original paper. The official printed capies would not
be ready until the following day. It was therefore necessary
to ask reporters for as much detail as they could supply.
At the same time, several reporters supplied valuable
personal appraisals of the attack.6

These appraisals, together with reports from the
governor's office, added up to an impression that the four
Negro legislators intended to pursue their course diligently;
that Townsend was making veiled references to blocking the
nomination of Mackie; that he would not reveal his specific

charges when challenged to do so by the press, nor would he

 

5Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

GIbid.

15
reveal his evidence, whatever it might be, to members of the
governor's staff.

Several of the sources reported that Townsend was
insisting that MSHD employes would suffer reprisals if they
came forward with evidence of discrimination, and that only
a legislative inquiry could protect them.7

By late afternoon, Mackie and his staff realized they
faced a situation involving great dangers, politically and
governmentally, if it got out of hand. The staff discussed
the problem until early evening and resumed its discussion
the next day. Gradually a series of overlapping goals were
worked out and enumerated:

1. To offset in the short-run calendar of the
nomination and election period the potential political
effects of the charge.

2. To create a counter-position wherein Mackie
could demonstrate that he did not fear any fair
inquiry.

3. To isolate, if possible, the initiating
legislators.

~ u. To stop the legislative investigation, because
it could create politically difficult situations
concurrent with the election campaign by offering
a forum for unqualified Charges by disgruntled
employes, present or past. ‘In the formation of

legislative committees, the Republican Party held

 

7Ibid.

 

16

the majority of members. This was another reason
why Mackie, who‘would be seeking a second term on the
Democratic ticket, sought to thwart a legislative
inquiry.

5. To retain the support of tug Negro legislators
who had not yet associated themselves with the Townsend
move.

6. To set up a source of unimpeachable credi-
bility to offset the source credibility of the Townsend
group.

7. To turn the accusation into an opportunity
for the MSHD to emerge as the leader in fair employ-
ment practices among Michigan state government
agencies.8

Each of these goals was achieved. The accusation was
neutralized; Mackie suffered no political damage in the
nominating convention or the election; and by late September,
1961, political and governmental leaders in Michigan and
nationally were writing letters of praise for Mackie's
leadership in fair employment practices.

On January 19, the agency made its most important
countermove. It initiated an investigation of its personnel
practices by another governmental agency. Mackie formally
asked the Fair Employment Practices Commission to investigate
the highway department. Never before had the Michigan FEPC

been asked to investigate a government agency. FEPC was

 

8John C. Mackie memorandum to files, January 18, 1961,
in files of executive division, MSHD.

17
considered by Negro leaders to be one of the great achieve-

ments of the Williams' administrations in advancing civil
rights. Every Negro legislator had publicly supported its
creation and continuance. Its chairman in 1961, by coinci-
dence since the chairmanship is rotated, was a Negro, Alex
Fuller, who was in the same Democratic congressional district
organization in Detroit as Yates, one of the co-Sponsors of
the legislative resolution. Mackie's letter to Fuller read:

This week, a serious charge was publicly made
that the Michigan State Highway Department has a
policy of racial discrimination in employment. I
categorically deny that any such policy exists.

Such a charge, however, requires an investi-
gation without favor or bias to determine its
validity. I therefore ask that your Commission
undertake a prompt and complete review of our
employment practices to see whether there are any
violations of the letter or the spirit of the Fair
Employment Practices law.

Since your Commission is set up by law to
handle such investigations, and you have the staff
trained to make fair and impartial findings in
such cases, the results of a review by your Commission
would be unimpeachable and would clarify this charge
for the public.

We will cooperate fully with your Commission.

We welcome your interrogation of any employee. We
will make available any records you care to examine.
The Highway Department has nothing to hide. If
there are mistakes in our procedures, we will be
glad to find them out. If our policies are fair, we
will be glad to have the public so informed.

Before asking the FEPC to investigate, Mackie and his
staff reviewed the probable outcome if the FEPC denied the
request. Three conclusions were reached: (1) it would
create state-wide headlines portraying Mackie as being rebuffed;

(2) it might, therefore, seem to add credibility to the

 

9Letter of John C. Mackie to Alex Fuller, January 19,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

18
original charge; and (3) it might increase the possibility

that the Townsend resolution would pass, since legislators
could then say that the legislature was the only investi-

gative body remaining.1°

"In government sometimes you want to be sure of the
answer before you ask the question," Mackie pointed out. A
staff member was instructed on January 18 to explore through
a third party, a person known to have the full confidence of
the FEPC and its staff, whether Mackie's request would be
acted on favorably. The FEPC answer was that favorable action
was likely. The Mackie letter was thereupon drafted and
sent.11

Fuller's reply was dated January 20. It read:

We have received your letter of January 19,
'stating that serious charges of discrimination in
the employment policies of the State Highway Depart-
ment had been publicly made; that you categorically
denied these charges; and that you were requesting
the Fair Employment Practices Commission to under-
take a prompt, thorough, and impartial investi-
gation of the Department's employment practices.

We note, too, that you offer full c00peration
with the PEP Commission in any investigation,
including our staff interrogation of any and all
personnel and access to any and all records.

We accept your invitation. I have been in
consultation with my fellow Commissioners and with
the Commission's staff. We have asked Frederick B.
Routh, Executive Director, to contact you at once
to arrange for a meeting the first of next week
with you, and those of your staff whom you wish
present and members of our Commission and staff.

We promise you, we pledge to the public a
prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation; we
will contact those who have made the charges against

 

_ 10Interview with Al Kaufman, Administrative Assistant,
MSHD, March 10, 1962. ' -

11Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

19

the State Highway Department and each of these charges
will receive full consideration and will be thoroughly
investigated.

Under the Fair Employment Practices Act, this
Commission is charged with the responsibility to
investigate claims or charges of discrimination .
against any division of government, and where discrimi-
nation is found to eliminate it. We will fully meet
the obligation.12

The exchange of letters created two state-wide news

stories, both of which put Mackie and the agency in an

affirmative position, and portrayed them as being unafraid

of any fair investigation. Reporters were intrigued by the

novelty of an FEPC investigation of another state agency.

News reports emphasized that Mackie had initiated the move.13
The entry of the FEPC into the arena put the accusing

legislators into the position of casting doubt on the value

of FEPC investigations, if they insisted on their own investi-

gation at the same time. The move also gave those legislators

who did not want to join the accusing group a justification

not to do so. They could say to their fellow legislators,

and to their constituents back home, that they would await

the FEPC report and decide then what to do next. Townsend,

however, was not diverted.

Until the legislative [sic] decides whether to
make an investigation the type of which will be

impossible for the Fair Employment Practices
Commission to conduct, I will have no information

 

12Letter of Alex Fuller to John C. Mackie, January 20,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

13The State Journal (Lansing), January 20, 1961, p. u;
Flint Journal: January 21, 1961, p. 1; Port Huron Times-Herald,
January 22, 1961, p. 9; Pontiac Press, January 20: 1961, p. 2h.

 

20

to turn over to them. I feel this is an attempt by
a department head to supersede the legislative
branch of government.1“

With the FEPC action underway, the agency leaders
on January 20, reviewed in staff meetings the audiences to be
considered in future moves.15 Six audiences, not mutually
exclusive, and not influenced equally by the same appeals,
were listed:

1. The supervisory employes of the highway
department. The initial accusation hit directly at
the morality and fairness of supervisory employes
at every level and in every activity. "High
morale depends upon the belief among the rank and
file that personnel Operations are fairly handled,"16
White observes. If there was discrimination in
hiring and promotion, then supervisors would be
involved, actively or passively. (Even if a super-
visor is in fact discriminating, he usually ration-
alizes it under some other reason. Some supervisors,
for example, stated in the subsequent inquiry that
they were protecting Negroes from discrimination by
not assigning them to jobs in some out-state areas
for fear the Negro would be treated uncivilly in

restaurants and housing accommodations.)

 

1“The Detroit Courier, January 28, 1961, p. 2.

15John C. Mackie, memorandum to files, January 20,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

lsWhite, p. usa.

21
2. The Negro community to whom the Highway

Commissioner and the Democratic Party looked for
continued political support.

3. The Democratic Party community, understandably
sensitive about issues affecting its Negro supporters.

u. The legislature itself, and the Negro legis-
lators as a group, important because the department's
operating and capital improvement budgets undergo
legislative approval.

'8. The road building industry in Michigan.
Highway construction is performed by private con-
tractors out of public funds. Millions of dollars
are involved in highway construction contracts.

Every construction contract contains specific
language declaring it to be a contract violation to
discriminate in employment.17 A charge of this
nature, therefore, if proved against a contractor,
could lead to cancellation of his contract and his
removal from the list of qualified bidders. For
these reasons, contractors had a direct interest in

the developments. As a group, this industry is one

 

I

17"Neither the contractor nor his subcontractors

shall discriminate against any employee or applicant for
employment, to be employed in the performance of such contract,
with respect to his hire, tenure,.terms, conditions or privi-
leges of employment, or any matter directly or indirectly
related to employment, because of his race, color, religion,
national origin or ancestry. Breach of this covenant may be
regarded as a material breach of the contract.”‘ Michi an
State Highway Department Contract, Form 1301, Rev. KpriI, 1960.

22
of the major support groups for highway programs

generally.

6. The general public, casually interested in

state affairs and important in over-all popular
support for highway programs.

In the staff's planning, audiences were also divided
into media audiences. The press relations section of the
agency knew that periodically reporters would raise queStions:
about the progress of the investigation. The political cam-”
paign immediately ahead meant that Mackie would be presenting
his ideas on paid radio and television programs, as part i
of his political effort; while at the same time, he would
continue to make news as a government official. He would be
stumping the entire state, which meant he would be interviewed:
from time to time by newspaper, radio, or television reporters’
relatively less experienced in news handling than capitol:
reporters. The staff concluded that reporters inquiries
would be diverted to and handled by FEPC. This would place
the MSHD in the public position of complete detachment from
the investigation and its results, and thereby, in the opinion
of the staff, add to the impression that the MSHD had nothing
to fear.18 Until Marsh 19, when the FEPC report was made,
Mackie answered all questions about the discrimination charge
in the language of his letter to Fuller.

Since television is a visual medium, and a highway

building program lends itself to dramatic pictures of new'

 

f

18Interview with Frederick E.-Tripp, Director for
Administration, MSHD, March 15, 1962.

 

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23

highways, new bridges, and construction in progress; and
since employment policies, whether fair or discriminatory,
cannot easily be made visible, Mackie's campaign planners
decided to concentrate his paid political television entirely
on the road building record. The discrimination charge would
not be presented in this medium unless events forced Mackie
to do so.19

Mackie and his staff divided audiences still further
into: (1) the Negro newspaper audience, i.e. the readers cf
the Michigan Chronicle and the Detroit Courier; (2) the
Negro leadership audience composed of Negroes holding public
office, presidents of local chapters in Michigan-of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
and Negro ministers; (3) delegates to the Democratic state
convention; and (a) Democratic officeholders and Democratic
candidates for other offices at the April u general election.

The agency's top management had given thought to the
audiences and support groups affected by Townsend's charge,
recognizing that these audiences overlapped in many ways and
that the same appeal might work for several of the inter-
mingled receiver groups. Thought was given also totthe news
media, and evaluations were made of which media best suited

which audiences.

Another area of decision lay in the choice of content

of Mackie's public statements. It was decided to keep the

 

19Interview with Edwin N. Winge, Administrative
Assistant, U. S. Senator Patrick V. McNamara, and former
Director of Public Relations, Democratic State Central
Committee of Michigan, Lansing, May 2, 1962.

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2”
message of the highway election campaign, assuming Mackie's

nomination, separate from the discrimination matter. Mackie
would campaign affirmatively on the record of highway building
during his first four-year term. The massive road building
job, which was easily visible throughout Michigan, would be
the focus of all advertising and publicity material. The
nation's No. 1 road builder would be the central theme.20

The discrimination message would be that there was
no known discrimination in the highway department, that
Mackie himself had asked for a full investigation, that this
investigation was underway by the one agency designated by
law and equipped by training to conduct a full investigation,
that Mackie had given the FEPC Open access to any highway
department record or employee, and that any decision on the
validity of certain public charges should be withheld until
the FEPC report was made. The message would not attack
Townsend or any person who sided with him. And this message
would be used only in answer to questions, or as a subordinate
speech section. The reason for this was that MSHD executives
should not seem to attach more than passing importance to
the facts of the charge, lest by emphasis they seem to
indicate fear of its validity; but they should indicate that
they accepted seriously the fact that the charge was made
and were therefore cOOperating fully with FEPC to get a fair

and honest report on MSHD's hiring and promotion practices.21

 

2°Ibid.
21

 

Ibid.

 

25
At the same time that these evaluations of audiences,
media, and content of messages were being formulated, the
agency began to act in a variety of ways.
Full text copies of Mackie's letter to the FEPC and
of the FEPC reply were distributed to all MSHD supervisory
personnel to let them know that Mackie expected full compliance
with any requests of the investigators. This was done on
January 20.
In the following week, four major activities took
place:
1. On January 2n, Neil Staebler, Democratic
National Committeeman for Michigan, met in Lansing
with Billie S. Farnum, then Deputy Chairman of the
Democratic State Central Committee of Michigan (later
appointed Auditor General of Michigan); Ed Winge,
Publicity Director of the Democratic State Central
Committee; Otis Smith, Auditor General (later
A appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court), Richard L.
Miller, Administrative Assistant to Governor
Swainson, and Mackie.22 "
2. The FEPC investigators formally began their
inquiry by meeting with Mackie in his office in

Lansing at 1:00 P. M. on January 25.23

 

22Richard L. Miller memorandum to Governor Swainson,
January 29, 1961, in files of executive office, Capitol,
Lansing.

23The State Journal (Lansing), January 26, 196I, p. 7.

26

3. The editor of the Michigan Chronicle was
approached and offered an exclusive interview with
Mackie. The offer was accepted.2”

u. A series of third-person negotiations were
opened to see whether a meeting could be arranged
between Mackie and Yates. Yates was chosen because
the third person lived in the same congressional
district as Yates in Detroit and knew him. The
assessment of advisers was that Townsend could not

be safely approached at this time.25

At this point in time, the agency still had been
given no specific cases of alleged discrimination by Townsend
or the other legislators. Repeated attempts over the weekend
by several persons to get such documentation failed. Those
who tried to find out the particulars behind the charge, if
any, included a Negro Democratic state senator; the
Democratic minority leader of the House of Representatives;-
and two members ,of the governor's staff.26

Miller's report to Governor Swainson of the Staebler
meeting reveals the broad disagreement between Mackie and
Townsend. To a politically discerning person, it gives some
hints of the sensitive problems involved in determining what

countermoves should be made. Staebler conducted the meeting.

 

2“Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

25Miller memorandum to Governor Swainson, January 2a,
1961.

6 O O O O I 0
Interview with Richard L. Miller, Administrative
Assistant to Governor Swainson, Lansing, October 10, 1961.

27

He set forth, one at a time, such charges as Townsend had

made in comments to emissaries or reporters.

it this way:
Townsend

Despite my many
attempts to discuss
complaints of racial
discrimination with
the Commissioner person-
ally, Mackie has refused
to meet with me or the
group of Negro legis-
lators interested in
this situation.

Townsend

In 1960 the Highway
Department hired over
a hundred temporary
employes for summer
work in Genesee County.
Only a handful of the
hired were Negroes.

Miller summarized

Mackie

I have personally
contacted Roger Townsend
8 or 10 times over the
past 3 years on my own
initiative. In most
of these cases rumors
have come to me that
Roger was not satisfied
in some way or other
with my personnel policies
in Highway. Each time
Roger has claimed that
the rumors were base-
less, that he had no
complaints.

The latest contact
with Townsend was during
the 1960 legislative
session. We had a
right-of—way bill in
the House and Roger
was opposing it. I
approached him on the
floor and he stated
that he opposed the
bill because some of
his constituents would
be hurt by it. Dis-
cussion indicated that
Roger knew nothing of
the bill's content.

Mackie

In 1960 a total
of 10 to 15 temporary
employes were hired
for summer work in
Genesee County. Six
or seven of these were
Negroes.

Roger probably is
referring to 1959 when
approximately 130 summer

28

Recently a Negro
with a college education
and long tenure in the
Highway Department
(approx. 20 yrs.) was
passed by for promotion.
Subsequently a white
man with a high school
education and less
seniority was promoted
to the Opening.

Townsend

When Mackie refused
efforts of our group
to meet with him person-
ally, we went to Governor
Williams to explain
about the complaints.
Governor Williams called
Mackie, but was unable
to get him to meet with
us. If Governor
Williams could not get
Mackie's cOOperation,
our only resort is to
work through an investi-
gation by a legislative
committee.

We have wanted to
discuss this situation
with Mackie personally.
But every time we try,

employes were hired.

But in 1959 from 1/2

to 3/uths of all those
hired were Negroes.

In fact, Roger Townsend
was asked if he had

any constituents needing
temporary work that

he would recommend.

His reply was negative.

Obviously Townsend
is referring to the
case of Bill Smith, a
Negro who was given
consideration for pro-
motion to a supervisory
position. The state-
ments about Smith's
seniority and education
are true. He was not
promoted to the super-
visory position because
my personal conver-
sations with his fellow
employees proved to me
that he would be incapable
of handling supervisory
functions.

Mackie

Mackie doesn't recall
any request on the part
of Governor Williams
for'him to meet with
the group of Negro
1e gis lators .

No attempts have
been made to contact
me, nor have members
of my immediate staff

29

‘

we are shunted to one shunted aside calls
of his employes. which are supposed to
have been made to me.27

Miller's memorandum refers in its concluding paragraphs
to rumors that the Townsend group intended to have some of
the local Democratic conventions picketed in protest against
Mackie's alleged discrimination policies.28 Mackie was
scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Genesee County
Democratic convention at 8:00 P. M. on January 25. Michigan
law requires that all county and district conventions be held
at the same hour on the same night. These local conventions
name the delegates‘to the state nominating convention. If
public demonstrations occurred at these local conventions,
it would create news headlines and pictures which might
prejudice Mackie's renomination ten days later. Miller
refers also to the attitude of Edgar Currie, Second District,
Wayne County, a Negro legislator, who supported Mackie; and
to Yates's reaction to the FEPC move, a reaction identical to
Townsend's views as quoted in the Detroit Courier that same
week. Miller's memorandum to Governor Swainson concludes:

It was decided not to attempt to contact Roger

Townsend because his purposes are to defeat Mackie.
With this purpose Townsend cannot be expected to
give Mackie a fair hearing.

There was unanimous agreement at this meeting

that you [Governor Swainson] should not meet with

the group of Negro legislators at this time. Such

a meeting might put those legislators not sympathetic
to Townsend on the spot in the Negro "community."

The possibility of Neil changing county con-
vention speaking assignments with Mackie (Neil at

 

27Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

28Interview with Miller, October 10, 1961.

30

Genesee, Mackie at Washtenaw) was discussed, but
no decision made. It is the opinion of Winge,
Smith, and myself that this would be a poor move.
It would give some credence, undeserved at this
time, to the Townsend charges.

I talked with Edgar Currie and Fred Yates over
the phone yesterday in regard to Townsend's charges.
Edgar has refused to be a part of the group com-
plaining about Mackie. He feels that Mackie' s
"conduct has been good" in the matter of hiring
Negroes. He is satisfied with the FEPC investi-
gation prOposal, but feels a lot of this could
have been avoided if Mackie had exhibited a little
more willingness to establish personal rapport
with Democratic legislators.

Fred Yates takes a completely different position.
He is opposed to an investigation by the FEPC and
says that in such a case the FEPC would be usurping
the investigatory power which by tradition resides
with the legislative branch. Fred also opposes
releasing any evidence available to any group
other than a legislative committee. To do so, he
says, would make those employes willing to offer
testimony against Highway vulnerable to punishment
from their supervisors. While a legislative
committee could subpoena these witnesses and
require them to testify, the FEPC could not.

Further, Fred states that FEPC has neither
the money nor the resources to conduct the type
of careful investigation which he feels is
necessary.

Yates clearly would like you to call in Mackie
and the group of Negro legislators for a meeting -
presumably to tell Mackie to work with the legis-
lators in setting up uniform promotional policies
within the Highway Department.

Neil also plans to have wires sent to each
convention chairman on Wednesday, January 25th.
The wires would give available facts on Highway's
hiring and promotional policies. Also the wires
would have a "Use only if question is raised"
notation to the chairman.

A random note: (1) Mackie will meet with the
FEPC at 1:00 P. M. on Wednesday and Townsend will
meet with the same group at 2:30 P. M. on the
same day.

The Michigan Chronicle interview took place in Detroit
on January 27 and appeared in’the paper's issue the following
Thursday, two days before the Democratic state convention.

In setting up the interview, Mackie's press section pointed

31

out that Townsend had given his first story exclusively to
the Detroit Courier, the competitive Negro weekly. Charles '
Wartman, managing editor of the Michigan Chrdnicle handled
the interview. Mackie was able to make several points:
that highway jobs were under civil service and controlled
by a great number of regulations in hiring and promotions;
that one Negro had reached the $10,000 pay level in the
MSHD since Mackie took office;that Mackie's department was
the first government agency in the nation to hire a Negro
to pilot its departmental airplane; and that a highway
department, by its nature, was largely an organization of
engineers. With few exceptions, the jobs that paid well
required engineering degrees. Negroes rarely graduated in
engineering from Michigan universities, and the department
was required by state civil service commission rules to
recruit in Michigan first before going to other states.29

Mackie's meeting with the FEPC investigators at
1:00 P. M., January 25, got the investigation underway.
Office space was made available to the investigators, and
they were told who to see for any records they wanted.
Arrangements were made to call in for questioning any employe
they asked for.30

The work of setting up a meeting with Yates was handled
by Irving J. Rubin, Administrative Assistant to Mackie. Rubin,

who is stationed in Detroit, began inquiries among Wayne County

 

29Michigan Chroniclg (Detroit), January 23, 1961.
aolnterview with Ross, February 2, 1962.

32

and Detroit Negro officeholders and among Democrats in Yates's
district to see who might approach him. Hobart Taylor, a
Negro attorney, since appointed by President John F. Kennedy
to be legal adviser to the President's Committee on Equal
Opportunities in Employment, was one of the persons approached.
Through his intercession, a meeting was held in the Canopy
Hotel at Brighton, from 6:00 to 10:00 P. M. on January 29.
Mackie interrupted his campaigning in Montmorency County,
more than two hundred miles away. to attend. At the meeting
were Staebler, Mackie, Taylor, Yates, Rubin, and John Murray,
Public Relations Director for the MSHD.31

There had been indications during the previous week,
verbally reported by emissaries in the state capitol that
the signers of the accusatory resolution would not sit down
with Mackie, except as a group, lest any one of them seem
to be making a separate cenciliation or retreat.32

The Negro legislators who did not participate in the
original charge likewise were reported to be reticent about
meeting with Mackie, once the charge was made, for fear of
seeming to be less enthusiastic than the accusers in defense
of their own peOple in a discrimination matter. Rubin found
this reticence also among several of the possible go-betweens

for the Yates-Mackie meeting.33 Until the impact of the

 

31John C. Mackie memorandum to files, January 30,
.1961, in files of_executive division, MSHD.

2
Interview with Irving J. Rubin, Administrative
Assistant, MSHD, Detroit, February 13, 1962.

331bid.

 

33
original charges had been dissipated, or until the FEPC

investigation was complete, it was not easy for a Negro
leader to take sides.

Yates made it clear at the Brighton meeting that he.
was meeting with the foreknowledge of his three co-signers,
and that all discussions would be reported back to them, and
to other Negro legislators who might be interested. The
discussion centered on five prOposals made by Taylor and
Yates. They were: (1) that the MSHD should undertake a
recruitment program to find Negroes qualified for higher
level jobs; (2) that promotional potentials, a civil service
form and procedure preliminary to any promotion, be redesigned
to eliminate any opportunity for a supervisor to deny pro.
motion for discrimination reasons; (3) that a Negro be placed
at the supervisory level in the personnel division to assure
Negroes throughout the MSHD that they had a friend in'court
in personnel matters; (9) that the agency report regularly
to an informal "watch-dog" committee to be set up among
Negro legislators; (5) that individual cases of discrimi-
nation which Yates claimed to know about be given satis-
faction immediately.3“

Mackie felt that something could be worked out within
the framework of these suggestions, so long as he was not
made to appear in any way guilty of the original charges. It

might be possible to undertake a recruitment drive among

 

31‘John Murray memorandum to files, January 30, 1961,
in files of executive division, MSHD.

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Negro colleges in other states in an attempt to find Negro
engineers, although this and the promotional potential review
required civil service cOOperation. Mackie would make no
commitment on individual cases until he was given specific
information. All agreed to think the matter over. Yates
agreed to set up a meeting of Negro legislators, as many as
he could get, in Lansing as soon as possible to report the
Brighton meeting conversation. It was tentatively agreed
that the Brighton participants would attend the Lansing
meeting, which Yates and Taylor felt should be closed to the
press. Mackie pointed out the political meetings in Lansing
were almost always discovered by the press through tips or
careless conversations by those attending.35

Mackie had spoken at the Genesee County Democratic ,
convention on January 25. It was not until January 30, how-
ever, that the full dimensions of Townsend's attack on
Mackie were known.

As Miller's memorandum to Governor Swainson reveals,
the question whether Mackie should appear at the Genesee
County convention was discussed by party leaders. Genesee
County is Mackie's home county, and also Townsend's. Here
was the one location wherein Townsend himself probably could
be faced since legislators rarely miss attending their county
political conventions. Was such a confrontation desirable?
Would it lead to stories favorable to Mackie, or unfavorable?

Was it a real possibility that Mackie might be repudiated in

 

aslbid.

35

in his home county? Questions like these were puzzled over
by Mackie's staff and by the party strategists.

Before a final answer was made, Mackie went to Flint,
the county seat of Genesee County, and visited with the
Democratic county chairman, William Schwartz, to get a
private assessment of Townsend's strength. Schwartz said he
doubted that Townsend had enough votes to cause any real
embarrassment, for example, to deny Mackie a county con—
vention endorsement for renomination at the coming state
convention; but he fully expected Townsend to make a speech
about Mackie's alleged discrimination. The county chairman
felt that Mackie had not maintained sufficient personal
liaison with Democratic legislators during the previous
four years and recommended that this failing be remedied.35

Reassured by the chairman's assessment, Mackie
decided to address the convention. The county chairman's
assessment was not the controlling reason for this decision.
The decision was made principally on the grounds that in a
political arena Mackie's credentials had a wider public
acceptance than Townsend's. Mackie had received 588,993
votes in 1957 in his state-wide race for office.37 He was
a member of the administrative board, a form of cabinet in
the Michigan state government. He was in the Democratic

Party's inner council. He had been endorsed by Governor

 

:7

36Interview with William Schwartz, Flint, April 5,

1951'.

37Michigan. Secretary of State, Michigan Manual,
1957-1958, p. 5550

36
Williams. Townsend, elected in 1956 by 53,015 votes in a
district election could not match Mackie's state-wide politi-
cal appeal. Thus, if Townsend took his attack into the
county convention, and Mackie won, it would be a dramatic
setback for the legislator.

Auditor General Smith was to speak the same night to
the Democratic convention in Saginaw County. Mackie asked
him if he would speak on the Townsend attack. Smith, a
Negro, had credentials in the Negro community at least equal
to Townsend's, and anytfiing Smith might say would make a news
story, not only for the daily press but also for the Negro
press. Smith agreed.38 Mackie requested Staebler to
bring up the discrimination attack at the Washtenaw County
convention, which Staebler was keynoting, to serve notice
that the party was not indifferent to Townsend's attack or
to Mackie's welfare. Staebler agreed.39

The Flint Journal of January 26, 1961, testified to
the soundness of the strategy. A four-column headline on
the first page of section two read:

Dems Stick With Mackie
As Townsend Loses Fight.

Inserted in the body of the story was a release from
Saginaw:

Mackie Supported
by Otis Smith.

 

aaInterview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

3gIbid.

37‘
This story, all in bold face type, ran four para-

graphs. It read:

Saginaw-~Auditor General Otis M. Smith, the
first Negro ever elected to a state administrative
position, lashed out Wednesday night at charges
of discrimination brought against State Highway
Commissioner John C. Mackie.

In a speech to Saginaw County Democrats,

Smith concentrated on the accusations made by
State Representative Roger Townsend, Flint
Democrat.

"We who know Mackie have confidence in him,"

Smith said. "If anything in his department needs
changing, I'm sure he will do it.

Smith said he was sure that Mackie would take
necessary corrective steps if any discrimination
should be found in highway department hirings
and promotions.

On the same page, was a third relevant story. It
was a Lansing report saying that the FEPC investigation was
getting underway. The story made it clear that Mackie had
asked for the FEPC investigation and quoted from Mackie's
letter to Fuller. A fourth story on the same page, above

the fold as were the otherfthree, reported Mackie's speech

to the convention under a headline:

Election Critical,
Mackie Warns.

Four stories, all reinforcing an affirmative image
of Mackie, all legitimate news stories, made Mackie's
Genesee journey well worthwhile. Staebler's story angle did
not get used in Ann Arbor and was not picked up by wire
services. Staebler had, however, on January 23, issued a
direct press statement saying:

I have no evidence of nor complaints about

discriminatory employment practices in the State

Highway Department. If such evidence exists, it
should be produced by Mr. Townsend. If it does

38

not exist, Mr. Townsend is doing a disservice both
to Mr. Mackie personally and to the principle of
fair employment practices.

On Monday, January 30, the day after the Brighton
meeting, the Yates-Mackie negotiations were disturbed by the

discovery Of a letter Townsend had written on January 17."1

‘—

It was on plain paper, and contained a clear statement that
the four initiating legislators were trying to do more than
merely set up a legislative investigating committee; they
were trying to organize direct political Opposition to Mackie
as well. The letter was signed by Townsend, and listed
below his signature were the names Of Yates, Diggs, and

Holmes, Jr. It said:

This letter is to call your attention to a
resolution that was introduced today in the State
Legislature by four democratic members of the
House Of Representatives; Townsend, Yates, Diggs,
and Holmes. The resolution requested the House Of
Representatives to appoint a committee to study
racial discrimination in the hiring, upgrading
and promotion Of Negroes in the Highway Department
by Commissioner John Mackie. There has been
numerous complaints of racial discrimination coming
to the Negro members Of the Legislature for the past
three years. We called a meeting in Detroit over
a year ago Of Negroes who had made complaints and
invited Commissioner John Mackie but he failed to
appear. There were more complaints than we had
time to hear in one evening.

The Negro members in the House of Representatives
were prepared to introduce such a resolution last
year but withheld it after they were called in to
discuss the problem with Governor Williams. Before
seven Negro members Of the Legislature, the Governor
tried to arrange a meeting with John Mackie, he
tOO has failed to get him to a meeting.

 

uoPress release, Democratic State Central Committee
Of Michigan, January 23, 1961.

1Mackie declined to reveal the source Of the
letter.

39

There has been charges filed against John Mackie
through the State Fair Employment Practices Committee
Of which we have copies and no action has been made
public.

We had a young Negro engineer who became so dis-
cussed [sic] with the policy in the Highway Depart-
ment that-fie gave up engineering entirely and went
back to school and took up dentistry. We had instances
of qualified Negro personnel approved by civil service
but by-passed for promotion by the Highway Depart-
ment, and persons not on civil service were placed
into the vacancies while eligible Negro personnel
waited on the promotion list. We have instances
of Negro personnel who passed civil service with high
grades but are consistently given low promotional
grades by the Department to bring their total ratings
down so that they are low on the available register.
There are complaints by Negro members Of the Depart-
ment that once they become eligible for promotion
to a supervisory capacity they become subject to
extra ordinary pressures from within the Department.
SO much so until one member who was appointed soon
took sick and died because Of extreme pressures put
on him by the Department.

We have never once in all our years of negoti-
ating with the Department had a talk directly with
Department Heads about this condition.

For some reason John Mackie has absolutely
refused to personally sit down with Negro Legis-
lators and discuss this problem. It is our feeling
that John Mackie, during the entire 1960 election,
took the position that he was a non-partisan and
had been elected on the Democratic ticket. There-
fore we feel if he is going to claim to be a
democrat when he comes up for election he should
have carried out the entire platform of the party.

We feel the FEPC Law should apply to all
employers alike. If you agree with us this is what
you can do: GO into your organization and ask
the body to inform the Democratic Party that they
will not support John Mackie and will consider his
selection as a Democratic candidate a rebuke Of
their own party platform. Any member of the Negro
House members listed below will be glad to appear
before your organization and explain this matter
in more detail.”

 

u 0 O I O o
2Mackie's copy of this letter is in the files,
executive division, MSHD.

1+0

Mackie directed his public relations person to call
Taylor, the Detroit Negro attorney who had set up the Yates
meeting, to say that the letter cast the whole situation in
a different light.93 Heretofore, the agency had thought it
was dealing with a small group Of aggrieved legislators, whether
justly aggrieved or not was a dispute of the facts as Miller's
memorandum contrasting Mackie's and Townsend's stories
pointed out. Now it appeared that the legislators were
aggressively trying to go beyond a government inquiry and:a
personnel issue.

Taylor expressed surprise when the letter was read
to him. He had intended to accompany Yates to Lansing later
that day to be available for an enlarged meeting on the
Brighton considerations. Taylor candidly said that he did
not want to get into a political crossfire. He decided to
withdraw from the events, leaving Mackie to follow through
with Yates in whatever manner he saw fit.““ How far the
ripples of the TOwnsend letter might extend were at that
moment unpredictable. Mackie and his staff had no certain
knowledge how far the letter had been circulated.

The next call went to Staebler. After a lengthy
discussion, he agreed to call Yates to set up a meeting in
Lansing for the next day, January 31, with only Yates,

Townsend, Mackie, Murray, and himself present.“s

 

uaInterview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

I"‘Ibid.

“51bid.

 

 

kl
The five met for lunch in a private dining room in

the Riverside Hotel, Lansing. Mackie produced the Townsend
letter and Staebler read it aloud.“6 "Staebler had a
deserved reputation for infinite patience and courtly manners,”
Mackie said later. "But this time he was angry. I'have
never seen him so angry."“7

Staebler said he thought the two legislators were
acting in a manner which could only bring harm to the
Democratic party. He said he himself had given too much of
his life through the Democratic party helping the Negro
achieve fair employment opportunities to stand by now and
allow anyone, including Negro legislators, to create division
and discord. If Townsend and Yates had grievances, they
could be argued out in party and governmental councils with-
out mailings attacking the integrity of a state official
who wore the Democratic label.“8 Townsend said he had
mailed the letter "to a great number of people," but he
refused to reveal who they were, or how dispersed geographi-
callY-ug The meeting then discussed the Brighton proposals
but Mackie did not want to pursue them further. He said he
*would wait the outcome of the FEPC probe before making any

icomnitments. On that note, the meeting came to an end.50

 

'“SIbid.

u71bid.

 

”31bid.

uglbid.

SOIbid.

“2

In addition to the Taylor and Staebler calls,

Mrs. Mildred Jeffrey, Democratic National Committeewoman for
Michigan, and a staff employe of the United Auto Workers
(APL-CIO) was called and asked if she could find out who had
received the Townsend letter.$1 Mrs. Jeffrey had access to
leaders of union locals and leaders of community groups in
the Detroit area. Her formal job assignment was community
relations for the UAW.

Mrs. Jeffrey reported that the letter had been
received by one N.A.A.C.P. leader in Detroit, but not by
officers of union locals.52 On February 1, Mackie received
through the mail a letter from Mrs. Albert Wheeler, of
Ann Arbor, saying that the Ann Arbor Branch of the N.A.A.C.P.,
of which she was president, had received Townsend's letter
alleging highway department discrimination and "an equally
serious charge" that "you have refused to sit down and
.discuss this problem with Negro legislators."53 Mrs. Wheeler
asked for a statement, and made a prOposal:

Obviously, we are in no position to judge the

merits of the accusations and we shall not presume
to do so. However, we are vitally interested in
ascertaining the facts in this matter in order to
reach an honest and objective decision. To this end,
we would welcome a statement from you indicating

the hiring and promotional practices and record in

your department as it pertains to Negro personnel
and also your comments on the charges that you

 

51Ibid.

52John C. Mackie memorandum to files, February 1, 1961,
in files of executive division, MSHD.

53Letter of Mrs. Albert Wheeler to Jehn C. Mackie,
January 30, 1961.

“3

have refused to discuss this matter with several
legislators.

Finally, if you are renominated for Highway
Commissioner, this NAACP chapter would be receptive
to arranging a public debate in Ann Arbor on this ~
question at which time you and the legislators could
defend your positions, including bringing key indi-
viduals who would support your assertions. If such
a meeting would be agreeable to you and the legis-
lators we would try to schedule it at a mutually
convenient time between February 15 and March 31.
Perhaps the best times for such meetings here is a
week-day evening or a Sunday afternoon.

If this suggestion culminates in an actual public
debate we would have our local news and radio available
and attempt to secure representatives of the Detroit
newspapers, radio and television. “

The agency assumed from this that Townsend had
circulated his letter among the N.A.A.C.P. leaders in various

Michigan cities.55

The N.A.A.C.P. is considered an important force in

the Negro community.

The N.A.A.C.P. is the most important and the
best known organization in the Negro community.
Its president automatically becomes prominent.

The values and goals of the race are intimately
bound up with, if not actually embodied in, the
association. The N.A.A.C.P. is not a mass
organization in the sense that it organizes the
Negro rank-and-file for any purpose; it is rather,
an organization composed of and responsive to, a
relatively small but vocal and attentive group.56

Mackie later turned down Mrs. Wheeler's suggestion
of a debate. In a letter to her on February 2n, he said:
I appreciate particularly the attitude . . .

that you want to hear all sides before making a
decision. However, a debate, as you suggested,

 

suIbid.

55Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

56James Q. Wilson, gggrogolitics (Glencoe, Ill.:
The Free Press, 1960), p. 2 .

1m
would not, in my Opinion, clarify the charges
originally made. The issue is not one of argument
but one of fact, and I think the FEPC is the most
authoritative fact finding agency we have in this
field.57

Mrs. Wheeler's letter was circulated immediately to
party leaders, and to the governor's advisers for their
information.

The next rendezvous with danger was the Democratic
state convention in Grand Rapids. Mackie did not now fear
that his renomination was in jeopardy. A number of county.
conventions had endorsed his renomination. Party leaders had
no exact count of how many because no effort was made to
obtain a total. More important to Mackie was the absence
of any report of resolutions against him in the county
conventions. There was, however, the possibility of some
demonstration at the state convention. Reports filtering
to Mackie from the governor's office, from political friends,
and from newspapermen all agreed that Townsend was threatening
to carry a fight against Mackie to the floor of the state
convention.

In its edition dated February u, available to its
readers on February 2, two days before the state convention,
the Detroit Courier carried a story on page two reporting that
Townsend was trying to set up a Negro caucus within the

Democratic state convention. The story read:

I am requesting all Negro delegates to the
Democratic State convention in Grand Rapids to

 

57Letter of John c. Mackie to Mrs. Elmer Wheeler,
February 2“, 1961, carbon in files of executive division,
MSHD.

I45

caucus with the legislators, Friday night, February 3,
concerning the Michigan Highway Department and its
commissioner, John C. Mackie.

Negroes have been giving the Democratic Party
75 to 95 per cent vote margins in their districts.,
Their communities suffer a disproportionate share
of the total 320,000 unemployed in Michigan.

Here, then, was the first expression of a direct
political threat. Townsend's remarks continued in this vein
and touched also on the lack of Negro enginjers:

Negro voters have a right to know b fore they
vote how Mackie claims there is no bias in his depart-
ment of 5,000, when only 100 Negroes are included in
his entire operation.

0f the “00,000 Negro voters in Michigan, most
of them have been predominantly Democratic voters,
and if it isn't bias that exists, then what name
does the commissioner call it.

There are engineering classifications up to
Class VI, yet Negrges seldom are able to advance
beyond Class 111.5

Another factor of possible ominous import was a sheet
of paper which Mackie's driver brought back from the Genesee
county convention. The paper was a verifax copy of a reso-
lution on the letterhead of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored PeOple, Flint Branch, and it read:

Whereas the Executive Board of the Flint Branch
of the N.A.A.C.P. in special meeting assembled had
been informed of a resolution now pending calling
for the appointment of a committee to study alle-
gations of racial discrimination in the hiring,
upgrading and promotion of Negroes in the State
Highway Department under Commissioner John Mackie,
and

Whereas we are reliably informed Commissioner
Mackie has refused to discuss this question with
Negro Legislators, now therefore [gig] be it

 

58Detroit Courier, February a, 1961.

146

resolved that the Democratic Party be urged not to
nominate John Mackie as its candidatg for Highway
Commissioner in the Spring election. 9

Even if the best judgment of Staebler and his advisers
showed that Mackie's renomination was almost a certainty, a
Negro caucus within the Democratic convention would be a
major news story. The Negro delegates had never caucused
separately, and firsts make news. Moreover, such contests
as were shaping up for nominations at the Democratic con-
vention were for relatively obscure posts, so the convention
would likely be a dull meeting from the point of view of
reporters. A Negro caucus in a dull convention might produce
anti-Mackie headlines even as he was being rEnominated.

The convention actions did not directly affect the
agency's actions, yet they were joined to the degree that
Mackie, by reason of his position as an official elected on
a partisan ballot at a state-wide election, was both a
political leader and a government administrator. Furthermore,
advice affecting the political strategy would sometimes come
from government sources. State Senator Basil W. Brown, Third
District, Wayne County, a Negro and a Democrat, called Mackie
on February 2, to express his worry that some anti-Mackie
action might erupt at the state convention. He proposed that
Mackie meet at the state convention with Negro legislators

and that the group issue a mutually-satisfactory statement

 

9Mackie's copy of this resolution is in the files,
executive division, MSHD.

Q7
of conciliation or agreement after the meeting broke up.60

Brown followed up his suggestion by preparing a press release
containing the points he thought would serve for such a
meeting. He gave the proposed press release to Mackie on
February 3 in Grand Rapids when they met in the lobby of the
Pantlind Hotel for the pre-convention dinner and preliminary

county and district caucusing.61

Brown's suggestion was rejected. Mackie's advisers
felt strongly that such a meeting in the environment of a
political convention would make Mackie appear to be admitting
guilt, or to be capitulating. They envisioned a closed-door
meeting, reporters waiting restlessly outside, noisy language
inside, the door opening at last, Mackie and wansend emerg-
ing with Negro legislators and a number of Negro delegates
crowding behind, picture taking, a joint press release.
Mackie decided not to take the chance.62 ‘Brown's release
carried too much of a note of retreat. It read:
PRESSrRELBASE
”I have met with Negro Legislators and they have
called to my attention complaints about practices
in the Highway Department which if true, are contrary
to the Democratic Party Policy and Platform." Stated
Jehn Mackie, Highway Commissioner at a Press Confer-
ence held in Grand Rapids, February 0,1961 in the
Pantlind Hotel.
"Racial bias will not be tolerated in the High-
' way Department,“ he continued, "and if any Depart-

‘ment head or person in a supervisory capacity is
using the Department to perpetuate such personal

 

J

60Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

51Ibid.

62Ibid.

N8

views in denying equal opportunity because of race,
I want to be the first to know about it, and I
guarantee that proper disciplinary measures will be
taken against the guilty parties."

Commissioner Mackie further stated that he would
immediately issue a directive to all Department heads
and supervisory personnel setting forth the Depart-
ment's position of no racial bias and he expects it
to be strictly adhered to. '

Mackie promised that he would make a thorough
investigation of all complaints presented by legis-
lators and would meet with them monthly to check on
results. Such meetings will continue until the
problem is completely resolved. They further agreed
on a Four Point Program that will help prevent such
complaints originating.

"Had the original request of legislators to
meet with me not been fouled up in my office, I
would have been happy to have met with them and
settled this matter long ago."

Representative Roger Townsend, spokesman for
the Legislators and also initiator of a Legis-
lative Resolution to investigate Highway Depart-
ment bias, commented that Commissioner Mackie's
reputation for fair play will be equally as great
as his reputation as a road buiéger through his
vigorous action in this matter.

On February a, Mackie was unanimously nominated on
the first ballot.5" No eruptions occurred on the convention
floor, nor were any difficulties reported in the district
caucuses preceding the nomination. Forces friendly to
Mackie within the convention, led by Staebler and Mrs. Jeffrey,
had been alerted to report any indication that Townsend's
caucus move was getting underway.65 No such reports were

forthcoming .

 

63Press release drafted by Senator Brown, February 2,

1961, original in files of motorist services division, MSHD.

6“Detroit Free Press, February 5., 1961, p. 1;
Detroit News,’February 5, 1961, p. 1; Grand Rapids Press,
February 3, 1961, p. 1.

65Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

'49

With the renomination past, Mackie and his staff

turned their attention to audiences which earlier had been
generally agreed on as pertinent. Between February 6 and
March 6, the agency concentrated on a variety of mailings
and intra-agency memorandums. These included:
1. A letter from Mackie to twenty-nine officers
of N.A.A.C.P. branches in twenty-three Michigan cities
asking that they withhold judgment until the verdict

was in. Mackie wrote:

It has been brought to my attention that
a letter charging the Highway Department
with discrimination in the hiring and pro-
motion of Negroes has been circulated in

In the event that you were one of the
people who received this letter, I take this
means to deny the charge completely. I
recognize that the charge is a serious one
and I therefore have asked the Fair Employ-
ment Practices Commission, the agency
created by the Legislature for the purpose
of investigating such complaints, to con-
duct a total inquiry into the Highway
Department. We have directed that every
record be made available and that any
employee be made available. For your
information, I am enclosing a copy of my
letter to the chairman of the FEPC in
which I asked that an investigation be
undertaken.

The particular letter circulated in
Michigan charges that Governor Williams
failed to get me to attend a meeting. The
fact is that at that time, I was out of
Michigan on highway business and that a
member of my staff with authority to speak
for me did meet very promptly and did review
each complaint that was made.

' In any event, the FEPC investigation is
going forward. Whatever its findings and
recommendations may be, they will be promptly
accepted'and put into practice. It is my
belief that state government should be the
model employer--not only in eliminating dis-
crimination, but also in standards of pay

and performance. I certainly do not claim

50

that we in the Highway Department are perfect.
If there are ways and means whereby our firm
policy against discrimination can be made

more affirmative, I will be glad to do so.
This, however, is a far different matter

than the accusations made publicly against
me: charges which are not true in spirit or
in fact.

I am sure you would want to hear both
sides before you arrive at any conclusion.
The issue here is not one of argument, but
one of fact. In my Opinion, the FEPC is
capable of ascertaining the facts.

2. Mailing to all "concerns holding contracts
or sub-contracts with the state highway department"
a two page form asking information relating to hiring
practices of the contractors and the racial compoe
sition of their work forces.67

The care and caution with which the agency
reviewed each move was demonstrated in this mailing.
The two page form was drafted by FEPC staff persons .
and sent to Mackie to have it go out in highway
department envelopes. The FEPC does not initiate
investigations of private business concerns unless
a specific complaint of discrimination has been
filed. The highway department, however, as the
contracting agent responsible for the performance
of the contract could legally undertake to verify

whether the non-discrimination clause was being

 

66Letter of John C. Mackie to twenty-nine officers of
the N. A. A.C. P., February 8, 1961, original in files of motorist
services divis1on, MSHD.

67Mailing of Fair Employment Practices Commission to
contractors, February 1u,1961, original in files of FEPC,
Lansing.

51

enforced.68 Furthermore, Mackie had offered the
FEPC investigators any assistance they deemed neces-
sary to their work. In this instance, however, Mackie
asked the FEPC staff to come to his office to confer
on the proposed questionnaire to contractors.
Frederick Routh, executive secretary of the FEPC,
William C. Layton, and William B. Seabron of the
FEPC staff, met with Mackie on February 1n in his
office. At different points of the discussion,
different staff people participated. Mackie said

he had doubts about the form in several ways. For
example, the form asked the contractor to submit a
list of all his employees "by race," and Mackie
questioned the wisdom or legality of a public
official asking that question since the FEPC law
prohibits records by race. Another question was:
”Please describe your experience in the use of
Negro employees." Mackie voiced the same objection.
The preface to the questionnaire said it was "aimed
at finding out the use of Negroes." Mackie again
questioned whether this was suitable language.69

The day before this conference, C. J. Carroll,
Executive Secretary, Michigan Roadbuilders Association,
Lansing, had asked his association's attorneys to

review the form, which he had gotten from Howard E.

 

68Interview with James E. Andrews, Assistant Attorney
General, February 7, 1962.

69Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

52

Hill, Managing Director, MSHD. Hill was aware that
industry cOOperation was needed if the questionnaire
was to be of any value. Carroll reported that his
attorneys would advise contractors not to fill out
the questionnaire, but to say merely that they kept
no records according to race, and for them to submit
racial lists would be illegal.70 The FEPC repre-
sentatives did not agree with Mackie's position and
urged that the questionnaire be sent. Mackie's public
relations officer suggested then that the prefatory
language be changed so that it became a questionnaire
clearly originating in the FEPC, and that the highway
department then take the position that it was merely
transmitting a questionnaire drafted in another
agency. The FEPC representatives agreed and the
questionnaire was processed.71

3. A speech section for use by Democratic candi-
dates, party leaders, and state officials was pre-
pared by Ed Winge, party publicist. This material
reviewed the charge, Mackie's invitation to the FEPC,
and it included reprints of the remarks made by Otis
Smith at the Saginaw County convention. The theme
of the speech insert was that Mackie had acted openly

and fearlessly. He was a man whose actions were

 

70Interview with Howard E. Hill, Managing Director,
MSHD, March 15, 1962.

711bid.

 

53
evidence that he had nothing to hide. The speech

section urged other candidates to emphasize the
highway building record whenever such remarks were
appropriate, and to use the discrimination material
only when the question was raised from the floor,
or before audiences which might be presumed to be
interested, e.g. Negro church picnics. Reprints of
news clippings that told the story of Mackie's FEPC
action and the Mackie-Fuller exchange of letters
were mailed by the Democratic Party to its leader-
ship list, numbering about 1,500 persons, and
including all chairmen of the county and district
political organizations, members of the Democratic
State Central Committee, Democratic legislators,

I state office holders, county officials, and members
of operational committees dealing with registration,
money raising, get-out-the-vote drives, and other
party functions.72 The ten Democratic candidates
for spring-election offices (Mackie made eleven)
were canvassed frequently by the,party secretariat
during the weeks until the election for any evidence
that the discrimination question was being raised
along the campaign route. Eight of the candidates
reported that the question came up, either from the

floor, or in conversations after political rallies.

 

72Speech section and newspaper clipping reprints
issued by Democratic State Central Committee of Michigan,
Lansing, February 19, 1961, in files at committee office.

St.

The tone Of the inquiry, however, was not accusatory
for the most part. Mackie's experience was similar
to the other candidates.73

u. On February 21, an 8:00 A. M. breakfast was
held in the Jack Tar Hotel, Lansing, for all Demo-
cratic legislators. Mackie sent individual invi-
tations to the legislators, portraying the breakfast
as an Opportunity to talk over campaign questions.
Forty-two of the seventy-seven Democratic legislators _
attended. Yates was among them, as were six other
Negro legislators. Townsend, Diggs, or Holmes, Jr.
did not attend. Mackie addressed his remarks entirely
to highway issues, asked for the legislators' help
in getting the vote out in their respective districts,
and invited questions. The discrimination matter
did not come up.7“ The breakfast was a success in
its own right as a gathering of Democratic legislators
to hear the major candidate on the spring-election
ticket. The meeting had also the significant effect
Of opening the door to all Negroes in the legislature
who might be so inclined to sit down with Mackie.

S. Unsolicited letters to the agency praising
Mackie for fairness in employment Opportunities were
excerpted and distributed to the party's leadership

list, and used astarranted in answering any general

 

- j 1* tr

73Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

7"Interview with Kaufman, March 15, 1962.

55

mail on the subject. All mail in this area was first
turned over to the public relations division for
handling on the grounds that its people had the
skill in language to phrase replies accurately and
adequately.75

6. Any communication referring to the N.A.A.C.P.
was given careful review for its reprint possibilities.
As one example of many, a letter from James L.
Holloway, president of the Cass County N.A.A.C.P.,
which contained the statement that in Holloway's
Opinion "the policy laid down by you in regards to
discrimination was above reproach," was circulated
to tOp party officials, candidates, and other state
officials.76 Any data Of value in establishing that
Negroes had fared better in the agency under_Mackie
than under his predecessor, Charles M. Ziegler, a
Republican, were distributed to one or more of the
audiences with which Mackie was dealing either in
his role as a candidate or his role as the tOp manager
in a government agency. On February 1n, for example,
Frederick E. Tripp, Deputy State Highway Commissioner,
took the Opportunity in reply to a letter from Gordon
Traye, chairman, Sixteenth Congressional District

Democratic organization, to enumerate certain figures.

 

7SIbid.

 

76Letter of James L. Holloway to John C. Mackie,
February 2n, 1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

56

Traye's letter asked whether Negro employment in the
highway department had increased under Mackie.
Tripp said:
It has not been our policy to designate
a person's race, color, or creed, on any
personnel forms, and therefore we do not
know exactly how many negroes are employed.
However, in reply to the same question
by the Fair Employment Practices Commission
investigators, we attempted to find how many
of our employees were negroes, and found
that at the present time we have some 10a
negroes occupying permanent positions in
our Department. During the summer months .
we have employed as many as 300.
In 1957, prior to Commissioner Mackie's

term of Office, there were 18 gggroes
occupying permanent positions. '

7. From information supplied by Mrs. Hillary
Bissell of Grand Rapids, recording secretary Of the
Democratic State Central Committee in 1953-5“, the
agency learned that the N.A.A.C.P. branch in Grand
Rapids had invited Diggs, one of the initiating
legislators, to speak on February 19, at the True
Light Baptist Church, Grand Rapids, on the discrimi-
nation charge. She then asked Friley Johnson, branch
president, to balance the program with a speaker
representing NBCRie-78 Johnson sent an invitation

to Tripp, saying he was "deeply grateful to

 

——

77Letter of Gordon Traye to Frederick E. Tripp,
February 9, 1961, and letter of Tripp to Traye, February 1»,
1961, in files of executive division, Michigan State Highway
Department.

78Letter of Mrs. Hillary Bissell to Frederick E.
Tripp, February 10, 1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

57

Mrs. Bissell for maybe preventing an enjustic

[sic]."79 Clarence Taylor, Jr., an administrative
analyst working under Tripp, was assigned to attend.
Taylor is a Negro. His subsequent report to Tripp
was reproduced and distributed to MSHD top manage-
ment, to the governor's office, to party leaders and
to other spring-election candidates, and to the
N.A.A.C.P. leaders in other cities. Diggs did not
appear, and sent no explanation; Taylor asked to be
heard anyway, and Johnson agreed.80 Taylor's report
read in part:

In my presentation of the subject, I
stressed the fact that the mere use of the
word "Discrimination" had high emotional
overtones to we members of minority groups
who had long suffered "second class citizen-
ship", and that because of this fact it was
doubly incumbent upon us to be as objective,
'factual and calm in arrivin at any con-
clusions on any charge of d1scrimination
levelled at any person lest we be found
guilty of crying "wolf", to the detriment

. of our search for a better, fuller life as
American ci ti zens .

By way of statistics, I pointed out
that at the request of the Commission, for
a list of negro employees, by job classi-
fication in the Department, that the
Department had contacted each of the ten
District Offices for such information and
that a study of the returned information
revealed that as of July 1, 1957 when
Commissioner Mackie took office, the Depart-
ment had approximately 38 full and part-time

. negro employees, whereas today, three and
one half years later, we have approximately

 

——~T~—

79Letter of Friley Johnson to Tripp, February 13, 1961,
in files of executive division, MSHD.

80Clarence Taylor, Jr., memorandum to Tripp, February 20,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

 

...-¢

58

137 or an increase of approximately 250% for
the period.

In conclusion, I cited the long, objectiVe
and successful fight of the N.A.A.C.P. on the
national level for full citizenship for all
minorities, and that the only request our
Department could or would make was that the
members of this and other Branches uphold
that tradition of objectivity by withholding
any judgements in the matter until the
F.E.P.C. had concluded its investigation and
filed its report. At this time, I also
thanked the Branch for having granted the
Department the opportunity 5? meet and dis-
cuss the subject with them.

8. Within the agency, the public information
section set aside all clippings and magazine articles
relating in any manner to discrimination. These
were routed to Mackie and his policy staff, and
occasionally to the governor's office and to the
other candidates, for whatever value they might have.
Stories relating to discrimination problems were not
included in the clippings routed for top management's
information before January 17.82 Articles relating
to positions enunciated by President Kennedy,33
stories describing the federal govegnment drive to
recruit qualified Negroes for federal employment,8u

statistics on Negro population growth,85 stories

 

81Ibid.

82Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1952.

83New YOrk Times, March 7, 1961.
8"Detroit Free Press, March 1a, 1961.

sAnon.' "More Negroes--in More Places," U.S. News
a World Report, March 20, 1961. '

59

alleging discrimination in a Michigan mote185--all
were assiduously collected and circulated for what-
ever value they might have in forming management
judgments day by day.

The FEPC concluded its investigation in the week of
March 12, and issued its report for Sunday newspaper release,
March 19. Mackie concentrated every minute he could spare
from necessary government assignments to his political
campaign. He had asked the FEPC to conclude its investi-
gation before the April 3 election, if this was at all
possible.87 This was a calculated risk. An adverse report
from the FEPC might reduce Mackie's votes. A favorable report
might enhance his chances for a smashing victory. Party
leaders were confident in the final weeks that Mackie was far
out in front of his Republican Opponent. Yet each campaign
move was studied carefully down to the last day.

If the FEPC report exonerated Mackie, the press reports
that followed, might by inference, at least, put the initiating
legislators into an unfavorable public light. Moreover, some
Negro legislators and community leaders were still holding
back on public support of Mackie. He and his staff decided
to ask Negro legislators from Wayne County,‘since Mackie's
last three weeks of campaigning were concentrated in the
Wayne County area, to meet for lunch in Lansing on March 1n,

at Dines restaurant. The invitations were extended verbally

 

86Detroit Free Press, February 25, 1961.

 

87Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

60

by Tripp and Kaufman.88 Yates and Townsend were told that
the meeting could be the basis for a news story to the Negro
newspaper, indicating that the legislators and Mackie were
interested in the same goal, equal Opportunity for employ-
ment in state government, even if their approaches differed.
Kaufman pointed out that Mackie was likely to be elected and
that a mutually agreeable statement could be a bridge to
future meetings after the election. Beyond the election,
there was the continuing governmental relationship involving
their role as legislators and Mackie's role as an adminis-
trator.89

Representatives Edgar Currie and Maxine Young, Second
District, Wayne County; James Bradley, Fifth District Wayne
County; Hiram McNeeley, Twentieth District, Wayne County;
and Holmes, Yates, and Townsend attended the luncheon. The
discussion was friendly; and Mackie pledged to carry out the

FEPC recommendations promptly, whatever they might be.90

Mackie's public information section was assigned to draft a
statement which Yates could issue to the Negro press in Wayne
County in his name, and in the name of the other legislators.
The statement required several drafts, which carried it into
the next morning before it was completed.91 When issued by

Yates, it read:

 

88Interview with Kaufman, March 15, 1962.

891bid.

90Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

91Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

61

We met in a spirit of friendly cooperation to
discuss problems arising from reports of alleged
discrimination in the highway department.

We agreed that employment policies should be
reviewed periodically to guarantee that no unfair
practices develop.

To this end, we will hold future meetings.

Thus, by working together, we can do much to
gain a mutual oal of making state employment the
model of equal1ty and non-discrimination.

’ Misunderstandings may have existed in the past,
but we are 3n our way to resolving these misunder-
standings.9 -

Mackie and his staff did not have the same fear that
a conciliatory move would be misinterpreted at this time, as
dominated their thinking in the week before the state conven-
tion. The passage of time itself was the major factor in
the new assessment. The discrimination charge had disap-
peared from the newspapers. Beyond issuing a statement
announcing that the investigation was underway, the FEPC did
not make any press releases until the results of the investi-
gation were announced. Townsend had been asked by the FEPC
at the beginning of the probe for the specific cases on
which he based his demand for a legislative committee investi-
gation. Townsend refused to give his evidence to the FEPC.93
This fact was ascertained by the agency through conversation
with Routh. The MSHD'public information staff considered it
a prOper question to ask Routh, and did not hesitate to tell

capitol reporters of Townsend's refusal to document his

 

92Statement by Frederick Yates, March 15, 1961, in
files of executive division, MSHD. '

3Michigan, Fair Employment Practices Commission, An
Investigation of the Personnel Policies and Practices of the
Michigan State'Highway Dgpartment, Special Report of the

C§mmissiOnTDetroitz The CSmmission, 1961), p. 1. Hereinafter
cited as FEPC Report.

62

accusation. Capitol reporters had themselves been rebuffed
by Townsend.9“ More important news assignments soon diverted
reporters and Townsend ceased to be news. A conciliatory
statement, therefore, did not have the same news interest
to the daily press that might have been the case during the
political convention.
The Yates statement missed the copy deadline for the
March l8 editions of the Detroit Courier and the Michigan
Chronicle. It appeared the following week, March 25, in
the Detroit Courier, a tabloid, covering almost the entire
front page with a headline;
Mackie, Solons
Reach Accord on
Bias Charge
As a matter of style, the Detroit Courier repeats
its front page headline over the pertinent story on page two.
The first three paragraphs, after which appeared the text of
the Yates statement as drafted by the MSHD public information
section, read:
State Highway Commissioner John C. Mackie
assured seven Negro State Legislators Friday he
would comply with any recommendations made by the
forthcoming Fair Employment Practices Commission
on employment practices in his department.
Meeting with Wayne County Representatives
James Bradley, Hiram McNeeley, Edgar Currie,
David Holmes, Mrs. Maxine Young, Fred Yates and
Roger Townsend of Flint, Mackie repeated his intent
to enact forthwith whatever recommendations the
'FEPC makes. The FEPC report is expected within a
week.
At the same time the representatives were
assured of continuing Opportunities to discuss any

other employment policy not covered by the FEPC
report .

 

9“Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

63

The same edition of the Detroit Courier carried the

story of the FEPC report. The headline on page four read:

Highway Heads Cleared
Of Discrimination Charges

Any Negro legislator or community leader, heretofore
reluctant to campaign for Mackie, could now do so. The
public bridge had been built. The Michigan Chronicle did not
run the statement that came out of the meeting with Negro
legislators, but held its coverage to the FEPC report itself.

On Wednesday, March 15, the FEPC informed Mackie that
its report was nearly completed and that he and two assistants,
his public relations counsel and his director for administra-
tion, could review the report in Detroit on March 17, prior
'to its issuance to the press.

The preview meeting was held for the assistants in
the FEPC Office, Cadillac Square Building, Detroit, at
#:00 P. M., and later in the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel with
Mackie at 10:00 P. M., the earliest Mackie could break away
from a meeting in Oakland County. Routh spoke for the FEPC
staff at the meetings. Fuller, the FEPC chairman, joined
the group at the hotel meeting. Routh emphasized that the
'report would not be changed, unless some grievous error was
discovered in it; but that he felt that the agency should
have the opportunity to see what was in the report to prepare
whatever follow-up might be deemed desirable or necessary.95

The agency representatives suggested one change, a

change which indicates a sensitiveness to journalistic. values.

 

95Interview with Tripp, March 15, 1962.

6“
In relation to contract compliance, the report stated:

All state contracts, by law, must contain a non-
discrimination clause; while rigid contract compliance
in other areas is the rule of the Highway Department,
the evidence clearly indicates that the Highway
Department has made no effort to enforce the non-
discrimination clause in its thousands of contracts.96

The MSHD reviewers insisted that this could produce

a news lead on March 19 which might make it seem that there
was widespread discrimination by contractors. There might,
in fact, be no discrimination by contractors. Saying that
something is not enforced implies that violations might be
common.97 A careless reporter might pick this out and
write: "The FEPC reported today that anti-discrimination
clauses are not enforced in thousands of highway department

contracts.”

In fact, the agency staff said, no charges of discrimi-

were on record against contractors.98 Routh agreed to add

another sentence to the language:

It should be noted, however, that no specific
charges of violation of this clause by contractors
or subcontractors gave been brought to the Depart-
ment's attention.9

The agency protested one other conclusion:
Among factors tendin to limit the use of Negro

personnel by the State H1ghway Department are the
following: referral by present Highway personnel,

 

96Michigan Fair Employment Practices Commission, FEPC
report, draft copy, in files Of FEPC, Detroit.

7
Interview with Tripp, March 12, 1962.
98Ibid. - '

99Michigan Fair Employment Practices Commission, FEPC
report e '

65

most of whom are white; recruitment at district
Offices located in predominately white communities;
professional recruitment at the University of
Michigan, Michigan State University and Michigan
Tech, but not at the other professional and technical
institutions and colleges in the State.1 9

This, the agency argued, seemed to criticize the
department for something it could not remedy (”referral by
highway personnel, most of whom are white; recruitment at
district offices located in predominately white communities").
'Tripp said this implied that being white automatically meant
discrimination. Furthermore, it was factually untrue that
the MSHD recruited only at the schools named.101 Routh
replied that Wayne State University was the Michigan
university attended by the greatest number of Negroes, and
therefore the MSHD should recruit at Wayne. Tripp said the
agency did-102 The FEPC staff insisted otherwise and the
statement stood in the final report.103

On the advice of his public information section,
'Mackie had suggested the Sunday release to Routh.1°“ There
are only eleven newspapers in Michigan which publish Sunday
editions, but two of them are the largest circulation news-
papers in the state, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit

News. Mackie's public information staff believed the impact

 

looIbid.

 

101Interview with John Overhouse, recruitment and
training section, personnel division, MSHD, Hay n, 1952,

102Interview’with Tripp, March 15, 1962.
103

FEPC report. _
loulnterview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

66
of the Sunday papers of March 19 in the area wherein most
Negroes were concentrated, the Wayne County area, was worth
the lessened news value of the story as a second day story
for Monday editions around the state.105
The Detroit News played the story on page 12-B under

this headline:

FEPC Clears Highway Dept.
On Racial Discrimination Charge

The Flint Journal ran the story on page one. Its
headline read:

State Road Department
Cleared of Discrimination

The State Journal of Lansing ran the story on page
one under this headline: ‘
FEPC Asks Stricter
Control of Hiring by
Highway Contractors
The Detroit Free Press ran an eight-column headline
at the top of page one: .
Probe Finds Bias in Highway Dept. Hiring
The story was carried on page 9-A under a headline
that read:
Bare'Bias

in State's
Road Dept.

 

Readers of the Detroit News and readers of the

Detroit Free Press would find it hard to believe that they

 

105Of the population of Michigan, u7.u per cent lives
in the Detroit metrOpolitan area. 0f the Negro population,
73.9 per cent lives in Wayne County. U. 8. Bureau of Census,
U. S. Census of Population: 1960. General Po ulation

aracterist1cs as 1ngton overnment
Printing Uff1ce, 19317. - .

  

       

67

were reading stories based on the same handout. The Detroit
News lead said:

Charges that the State Highway Department wilfully
practiced racial discrimination in its hiring and
promotional policies were denied Saturday by the
Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC).

The Detroit Free Presg lead said:

There is some evidence of racial discrimination
in the State Highway Department, but it is not a
Department policy, the Michigan Fair Employment
Practices Commission said Saturday.

The Flint Journal had used the United Press Intere

national story. Its lead read:

Detroit (UPI)--The Michigan Fair Employment
Practices Commission said Saturday its investigation
of the State Highway Department uncovered no

instances of discrimination in employment or
advancement.

The State Journal published an Associated Press dis-
patch out of Detroit. Its lead read:

Detroit March 19 (AP)--The Michigan fair employ-
ment practices commission (FEPC) said Saturday the
state highway department should spell out its policy
of non-discrimination against Negroes and require
all road builders to comply with non-discrimination
clauses in their contracts. _

The Grand Rapids Press, which had given the accusatory
resolution an eight-column headline, ran the FEPC report on
page twelve under a one-column head ovethhe UPI story:

Road Unit
Cleared of
Bias Charge

The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press stories
were based upon a short version of the FEPC report which was
distributed by Routh to wire services and newspapers in

DetroitSaturday morning. The full report, also distributed,

68

ran sixty-six pages. The short version ran ten pages. It
summarized the scope of the report, Outlined the procedures
used, listed ten conclusions, eight recommendations to the
highway department, and a series of recommendations to other
departments, including the civil service commission. The
full report contained sample interviews and~responses,
accounts of district office problems, Observations on the
number of Negroes who sought employment in person at the
highway department office in Lansing. The news stories
showed clearly that reporters preferred the short version.

The ten conclusions in the short version were these:

1. There is no formal written policy Of non-
discrimination in employment in the Highway Depart-
ment's Employee Handbook and Personnel Policies
and Procedures Manual. There is, however, what

. amounts to a de facto policy of non-discrimination
which is generally understood by top management
and many supervisors.

2. The investigation failed to reveal any

-evidence of Negroes employed by the Highway Depart-
ment prior to 1933, between 1933 and 1955 (the year
of the passage of the FEP Act) there was only limited
use of Negro personnel including a segregated all-
Negro survey crew; since 1955 and particularly
since 1957, there has been a gradual increase in
the use of Negro personnel.

3. Most Negro employees believe that the
Highway Commissioner and top level administrators
do not discriminate and are opposed to discrimination
in the department's Operation. They also believe
that such discrimination as does exist may be
attributable to individuals on the lower supervisory
levels.

u. Negroe employees, almost without exception,
believe there has been a marked improvement in
non-discriminatory practices on the part of the
Highway Department since 1957. However, many feel
that there is still room for improvement.

. 5. There is evidence to support the view that
there is a plateau beyond which Negroes have diffi-
culty in advancing; it begins at the supervisory
levels.

69

6. Negro new hires tend to enter the Highway
employment stream in much the same way as whites.
However, evidence indicates that where provisional
and temporary appointments are involved, at some
district offices there is a paucity of Negroes.

7. Community housing and public accommodations
patterns based on race influence the utilization of
Negro personnel. In some instances, Negroes exclude
themselves from these areas, and in other instances
are limited from these areas by Highway personnel.
Discrimination in housing and public accommodations
has a direct relationship to the possibilities of
a program of merit employment.

8. All state contracts, by law, must contain
a non-discrimination clause; while rigid contract
compliance in other areas is the rule of the High-
way Department, the evidence clearly indicates that
the Highway Department has made no effort to enforce
the non-discrimination clause in its thousands of
contracts. It should be noted, however, that no
specific charges of violations of this clause by
contractors or sub-contractors have been brought
to the department's attention.

. 9. The small number of Negro workers seen on
highway projects does not accurately reflect the
Highway Department's utilization of Negroes; it
may be due to either of two causes: -

A. In some areas of the state there are few,
if any, Negroes available for recruitment.

B. Lack of enforcement by the Highway Depart-
ment of the non-discrimination contract clause
with contractors and sub-contractors.

10. Among factors tending to limit the use of
Negro personnel by the Michigan State Highway Depart-
ment are the following: referral by present highway
personnel, most of whom are white; recruitment at
district offices located in predominately white
communities: professional recruitment at the
University of Michigan, Michigan State University,
and Michigan College of Mining and Technology, but
not at the other professional and technical insti-
tutions and colleges in the state.

When he read the Detroit Free Press headline in
Lansing on Sunday, March 19, Mackie's public relations counsel
decided on his own to protest to the newspaper that the head-

line was misleading.106 With an election only two weeks

 

106Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

70
ahead, with the resolution of January 17 still in the
committee on rules and resolutions of the House Of Repre-
sentatives, with the cautious work done earlier in the week
to build a public bridge between Mackie and Wayne County
Negro legislators, and with the possibility that thousands
of people might see only the Detroit Free Press headline,
and not read the story inside, or read the Detroit Negg
story-~it was felt that some counter-story had to be argued
for. Ron Martin, the reporter who wrote the story, did not
agree, when called, that the story was misleading; although
he agreed that in the context of an election and a con-
tinuing governmental relationship between Mackie and Negro
legislators, the headline might have an impact dispro-
portionate to the report considered as a whole. Martin
.pointed out that he was not responsible for the headline.
Mackie's aide then asked that a Monday story be run on the
news peg that Mackie would send a directive to every highway
department employe spelling out specificallythe department's
:non-discrimination policy. Such a directive was one of the
eight recommendations to the highway cOmmissioner in the
FEPC report. A Monday story would enable Martin to quote
«other sections of the FEPC report which exonerated Mackie
from any‘blame. Martin agreed.1°7 On March 20, a six-
paragraph story appeared under a one-column head on page one

of the Detroit Free Press. The headline and the story read:

 

107John Murray memorandum to files, March 20, 1961,
ill files of motorist services division, MSHD. ’

71

Mackie
To Enforce
Bias Ban

State Highway Commissioner John C. Mackie said
Sunday he will spell out departmental non-discrimi-
nation policies to every employee in a directive
Monday.

"I said the recommendations of the Fair Employ-
ment Practices Commission would be speedily carried
out, and I meant it," Mackie said.

His statement came after the Michigan FEPC had
issued a comprehensive report on Highway Department
employment practices. In it the FEPC said there
exists "a policy of nondiscrimination which is gener-
ally understood by top management and many supervisors."
But it said the policy should be written.

The report said that there has been a "marked
improvement" in department racial policies since
Mackie became commissioner in 1957.

"The attitudes and actions of Commissioner
Mackie and top-level management are not discrimi-
natory,” the report said. ‘

Mackie said all FEPC recommendations would be
carried out as soon as programs can be set up.

Although the position and play of Monday's story was
considerably reduced over the Sunday story, the agency
believed the effort toward a correction greatly worthwhile.
The Monday, March 20 story, was included in reprints of the
stories in the Detroit News, the Flint Journal, and The State
Journal and mailed on March 21 to lists of the audiences with
which the agency was concerned from the beginning. The
agency made the reprints in its own shop.108 The mailing was
one way to assure that governmental, political, and Negro A
community leaders saw the second Detroit Free Press story.

On March 20, the MSHD top management gave first pri-
ority to the non-discrimination directive. This was done

not only to justify the Detroit Free Press story but also as

 

1”Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

72

the first step toward the long-range goal set forth in
January: to turn the initial attack into an opportunity

for leadership within state government agencies.

The directive was written, printed, and mailed to
every employe at his home address. It read:

It is the policy of the Michigan State Highway
Department that:

No person shall be discriminated against in
seeking employment, in being employed or promoted,
in any conditions of his employment, or any sepa-
rations therefrom, because of race, color, religion,
national origin, or ancestry.

No retaliation of any form, kind or degree shall
be brought against any employee.who under.any circum-
stances brings charges of discrimination either to
the management of the Michigan State Highway Depart-
ment, or the Civil Service Commission, or to the
Fair Employment Practices Commission.

This directive will formalize the Michigan
State Highway Department's non-discrimination
policy and thereby make this policy specific and
clear to every employee. The employees of the
Highway Department can be proud of the record of
improvement in equality of employment Opportunities
since 1957.

I ask your continued effort to assure that
equality of Opportunity in all hirings and pro-
motions is carried out without regard to race,
religion, color, ancestry, or national origin.109

On March 21, Eleinge mailed a packet to the Demo-
cratic candidates in the spring election and to the party's
leadership mailing list. The packet contained these items:
(1) a statement to guide candidates and party leaders in '
their public comments about the FEPC results, (2) a copy of

-the short version of the FEPC report, (3) and reprints of

 

109John C. Mackie memorandum to employees, March 20,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

73
the headlines and complete stories from Flint, Lansing, and
Detroit newspapers.110
Winge's guide statement read in part:

I suggest the Democratic candidates present this
whole activity as a Democratic plus.

Instead of trying to sweep anything under the
carpet, Commissioner Mackie asked for a full and
frank assessment of his departmental practices. He
said he did not think the Highway Department was
perfect and he would willingly make improvements
wherever needed. His aim is to do all he can to
make the State government the model employer, not
only in working conditions, but in equality of
opportunity.

The FEPC report makes it clear that Negro
employees "believe there has been a marked improve-
ment in non-discriminatory practices on the part
of the Highway Department s1nce 1957”--which is the
year Commissioner Mackie took office.

The report points out that until 1957, there
was only l1mited use of Negro personnel in the
Highway Department and that almost all the improve-
ment that has taken place has occurred since then.

The FEPC report went beyond the Highway Depart-
ment and made a series of recommendations to the
Civil Service Commission, to other state agencies,
to Governor Swainson and to the Michigan Legislature.
Essentially, these further recommendations ask that
specific directives of non-discrimination policy be
issued in all state government agencies, that the
FEPC be given funds and staff to establish a con-
tract compliance division to enforce the non-dis-.
crimination clause in all state contracts, and '
that the Governor call a state-wide conference of
agency heads to set up procedures and reports in
this general area. -

The majority of newspapers absolved Commissioner
Mackie of the charges or1ginally leviied against him
and against the Highway Department.1

Mackie's staff prepared a separate memorandum for the
N.A.A.C.P. leaders, telling them where they could get a copy

of the full FEPC report, and enclosing copies of the news

 

110Interview with Winge.-Nay 2. 1962'

111Memorandum of Wings to spring-election candidates
and others, March 21, 1961, in files of Democratic State
Central Committee, Lansing.

7“

stories and the intra-agency directive. Mackie considered
the reprinted news stories to be a particularly effective
mailing piece, because someone else, i.e. the headline writers,
and reporters, were exonerating him, and saying for him in
dramatic black type what might seem immodest if said directly
by himself. Mackie also assumed that the N.A.A.C.P. branch
officers outside of Detroit would not be likely to see news-
papers from other cities, and hence his mailing would be
fresh and attractive to them.112

On March 23, tOp management in the MSHD distributed
to every division head in the highway department the full
text of the short version of the FEPC report. Personnel
officers were given the full version to study. The agency
asked the FEPC to send copies of the report to all legislators,
to the members of the Administrative Board and to the governor
and his staff. Carbon copies of the letter so requesting
were sent to the recipients to inform them that the MSHD was
making sure that they got a copy of the report.113

The election on Monday, April 3, was a Mackie land-
slide. He carried Wayne County with 270,639 votes to 97,276
votes for his Republican Opponent, Charles R. Bedwell. Over-

all, he received 760,329 votes to his opponent'e51e,096.1l“

112Interview with Mackie, March 12, 1962.

113Letter of John C. Mackie to Frederick Routh,
March 2n, 1961, carbon copy in files of executive division,
MSHD. . -

lluflidhigang secretary of State, Michigan Manual,
1957-1958, p. 568.

75
In his first election in April, 1957, Mackie had
carried by 588,uu3 votes to 535,720 votes for his Opponent,
George M. Poster. In 1957, Mackie had received 266,3“1 votes
in Wayne County to Poster's 131,630.115

State-wide, Mackie had gone from a 52,723 vote margin
in 1957 to 2H2,233 in 1961; and in Wayne County, from 12u,711
to 173,353. Mackie's Wayne County vote did not greatly
increase, but the Republican vote fell far below 1957 there.

Neither Mackie's staff, nor party leaders, nor poli-
tical reporters made any claim that the discrimination matter
was an issue in the election of any proportions; indeed,
the multi-party and multi-part effort was precisely to keep
it from flaring into an issue. Foster was a welloknown Repub-
lican and Mackie a political unknown in 1957. In 1961,
Mackie was the well-known figure, and Bedwell was the unknown.

' The election behind him, Mackie and his staff were
now able to give full attention to carrying out the eight
recommendations of the FEPC report. These were:

1. The Highway Commissioner should immediately
promulgate a clear, definitive, written employment
policy of non-discrimination; this should be communi-
cated and interpreted to all supervisory personnel
and distributed to all employees.

2. The Highway Commissioner should promulgate,
communicate, and implement a written policy of no
retaliation against employees who might bring charges
of discrimination either to highway management,
through complaints to the State Civil Service
Commission or the Fair Employment Practices Commission.

3. The department should establish and maintain
an on-going program of orientation and training for

supervisors at all levels in the philosophy, opera-
tions and techniques of merit employment.

 

llsnichigana Secretary of State, Michigan Manual,
1957-1958, p. 568.

 

76

u. The department should establish a section
whose function will be the systematic and periodic
review of personnel practices with special emphasis
on the implementation of the policy on non-discrimi-
nation in employment.

5. The department should establish a firm
procedure for periodic review and continuous
implementation of the non-discrimination clause in
all Highway Department contracts and require all
contractors and sub-contractors to display the FEPC
Poster in prominent places.

6. The department should review and reappraise
the present promotional potential rating procedures
to insure that they are being utilized consistent
with Civil Service provisions.

7. The department should inaugurate immediately
a program instructing district office managers and
other suitable personnel to work with local leader-
ship in communities where housing and public accommo-
dations practices work a hardship on any employees.

8. The department should make a semi-annual
review and survey of the implementation of its non-
discriminatory employment prOgram (contained in
Recommendation No. 1) and report each of these to
the Fair Employment Practices Commission for the
next two years.

The first and second recommendation had been taken
care of by the March 21 directive to employes. Of the re-
mainder, the fourth was considered by Mackie and his staff
as the controlling one. By designating a person within the
agency to have primary responsibility for matters relating to
equal opportunity in employment, and by making that person
responsible only to the highway commissioner himself, the
agency would be making it clear both internally and externally
that the FEPC report was regarded as a serious matter de-
serving top management attention and follow through.

The section was established on July 12 by a directive
from.Mackie to all MSHD division heads. The three months
interwening'were devoted to working out which of a number of

possible ways of structuring the section would most efficiently

I‘lllllllllll Ill :1“! "I- ll |Iu . ‘5 i . .lel

77
implement the FEPC recommendations. This required periodic
consultation with the FEPC staff and with civil service job

analysts to set up a suitable job description and civil

service grade level.116 When the procedural questions were
resolved, Mackie's directive was issued. It read:

In line with the recommendation by the Michigan
Fair Employment Practices Commission, March 18, 1961,
a special section is being established within the
Department. The function of this section will be
the systematic and periodic review of personnel
practices with special emphasis on implementation
of the Highway Department's non-discrimination policy
contained in my March 20, 1961 memorandum.

Effective immediately, I have designated Albert
Kaufman of the Executive Division to head this sec-
tion. Your complete c00peration in this area will
go a long way in achieving the Highway Department's
goal in the field of human relations. 17

From then on, all matters relating to the employment
of Negroes were referred to Kaufman before action was taken
on them. Kaufman gave top priority to any complaints, no
matter how they originated. The agency was determined to
eliminate any possibility of future complaints by legislators
that they were not getting a satisfactory hearing on Negro
employment problems. A typical handling of a random complaint

is indicated in a memorandum from Kaufman to Mackie dated

June 1“. It reads:

On June 8, 1961, Miss Dorothy McClernan, your
secretary, received a telephone call from Frank
Williams of 1762 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit,

Essentially, Mr. Williams' message was to the
effect that there was unrest among certain Negroes

 

116Interview with Kaufman, March 15, 1962.

117John C. Mackie memorandum to all division heads,
July 12, 1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.“

78

in Detroit because "Negroes were not employed on
Highway projects."

Mr. Williams said that a group of Negroes had
driven from Detroit to Grand Rapids recently and
failed to observe one Negro on a Highway construction
project. ‘

Mr. Williams concluded with the report that he
understood a delegation of Negroes was planning a

"protest march" to Lansing to complain about dis-
crimination.

On June 13, 1961, I called Mr. Williams and
asked to discuss this matter with him. At 8: 00 P. M.,
same date, I went to his home.

We discussed the allegations generally but
Mr. Williams was unable to provide specifics. He
could not recall names, places or dates involving
those who made the Detroit to Grand Rapids trip or
those spearheading the protest drive.

Mr. Williams said that he was not personally
aware of discrimination by Commissioner Mackie or
any contractor. Mr. Williams admitted during our
conversation that chances of discrimination were
possible through union hall hiring practices.

At 8:20 P. M., we were joined by a Mr. Henry
Bulkley who identified himself as a member of the
Democrats 15th District Executive Committee.

Mr. Bulkley hastened to explain he was not present
in any official party capacity but rather as a Negro
interested in fa1r employment practices.

Mr. Bulkley said he was not personally aware
of discrimination but like Williams, had heard of
discrimination by contractors and the proposed
protest drive.

I assured both gentlemen that as your chosen '
representative in the field of human relations, I
was anxious to know of any complaints. I also
assured them that I would be happy to meet with
them or any others desirous of discussions on this
subject.

I told them we were most anxious for facts.

We met until 9:30 P. M. No conclusions were
reached. However, both gentlemen said that in
view of our conference, they would relate the State
Highway Depistment's offer of cooperation to all
concerned.

The MSHD's public information section continued its
alertness in culling and distributing stories relating in any

way to employment_discrimination. The public information

 

118Al Kaufman memorandum to John C. Mackie, June 10,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

79
staff further watched for opportunities for legitimate news
stories featuring Negroes employed by the highway department.
A news release dated July 28 is representative of several
stories taking advantage of such Opportunities. Ronald
Holmes, a prOperty tax specialist, was invited to speak to
the annual convention Of the Michigan Association of County
Treasurers in Menominee, On August 8. His speech covered tax
procedures followed by the MSHD when it acquired prOperty
for new highways. The five-paragraph press release handled
the announcement routinely. The release was distributed
through the capitol press room to daily newspapers and wire
services. The stOry was mailed to the Detroit Courier and
to the Michigan Chronicle. A picture Of Holmes was distri-
buted with the story. It said what the story did not say.
Holmes was a Negro. The Negro weeklies carried the picture
and the story. A Negro was representing the highway depart-
ment at a major conference in an Outstate city and speaking
as a qualified expert in property taxes to a group of fellow
experts.119 .

In August, the public information section suggested
to the Detroit Courier that it assign a reporter to go onto
job projects and into MSHD district Offices to talk to the
workers about discrimination. .

The result was a three-part series in the issues Of

August 19, August 26, and September 2. The MSHD furnished

 

119Press release, July 28, 1961, in files of motorist
services division, MSHD.

8O
transportation for Webb and Kaufman accompanied him. No
advance warning was given to any project engineer or district
Office manager. The agency wanted to be sure that Webb had
no justification to say that his trip was not Openly and
honestly arranged. Webb's stories were a careful review Of
what he found in his interviews with MSHD officials, workers
on the job, FEPC spokesmen, and Townsend and Yates. The leads
of the three stories in sequence were:

The Michigan State Highway Department, accused
of discrimination against Negroes by several State
Legislators last fall, i3 making a determined effort
to rectify the charges.

Although bias in the Michigan Highway Depart-
ment is in the process of complete elimination,
individuals in the department, as well as others
familiar with the situation, blame Negroes themselves
for not securing more positions.121 .

"Present trends in the Michigan State Highway
Department as they affect Negroes," stated Rep.

Fred Yates this week, "appear to be that thg program
is moving forward on a progressive scale. 2 V

\

These stories were clipped, reproduced and mailed to
the lists which had.been receiving material since January,
except that the political lists were reduced substantially
in size and the gOvernmental lists increased by the addition
of industry groups, for example, the Portland Cement Associa-

tion 0 12 3

 

120Detroit Courier, August 19, 1961.

 

1211bid., August 26, 1961.
122

123

Ibid., September 2, 1961.

Interview with Farrell, March 12, 1962.

81

In its recommendations to other agencies, the FEPC
requested that "the Governor promulgate a Code of Fair
Practices binding on the executive branch of the State Govern-
ment and all State Agencies."12” Governor Swainson on May 26,
1961, issued a formal code of fair practices as drafted by
the FEPC staff, and this, in placard form, was made available
to all agencies.125 In addition, the FEPC has its own poster
stating the fair employment law, the rights of an employe
under that law, and the procedures by which he should assert
those rights if he believes discrimination is being practiced
by his employer. Kaufman set off on a journey to visit each
MSHD district office (ten in number covering the state) to
instruct district personnel in the FEPC recommendations and
to distribute the FEPC and the Swainson posters.126 .Earlier,
FEPC posters had been distributed to every highway contractor.
Kaufman's report to Mackie indicated that the discrimination
prOblem had many ramifications. There had been instances in
which Negroes, going from Detroit to small communities outstate
for highway construction jobs, had insufficient funds to
carry them to the first payday, or had been unable to find
sleeping accommodations of any kind in the vicinity of the

job and sometimes both; Kaufman told Mackie:

 

T

lzuMichigan, Fair Employment Practices Commission,
FEPC Report.

125
Governor John B. Swainson directive to all state

government agencies, May 26,1961, in files of executive
Office, capitol, Lansing.

126Al Kaufman memorandum to JOhn C. Mackie, June in,
1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

82

Sometimes we [the highway department] have per-
mitted employees to sleep in field offices both as
a money saving device and a source of hous1ng where
accommodations were limited or unavailable in the
immediate job vicinity.

But even this humanitarian gesture has not met
the roblem. In one instance where our supervisors
permitted a Negro to sleep in the field office,
there were objections from white workers who, in
an effort to save money, wanted similar 9ccommo-
dations. The practice was eliminated.

a.

On September 8, Mackie made a formal report to the
FEPC listing the specific action that had been taken in
relation to each FEPC recommendation. This report was
summarized in an MSHD news release on September 13. The
release and the commendations that followed climaxed the
eight months of agency activity arising out of the original
January prOposal that a special legislative committee be

formed to investigate the highway department.128 The release
said:

LANSING-~State Highway Commissioner John C.
Mackie today made public his Department' 8 accomplish-
ments in the area of equal opportunity in employment.

He listed eight major steps, highlighted by
creation of a special section, to insure non-dis-
crimination in employment and promotion in the
5 ,000-employe State agency. a

In a letter to Fred B. Routh, Executive Director
of the Michigan Fair Employment Practices Commission,
Mackie said:

"It is my belief that the State Highway Depart-
ment's progress in this field can be used as a
model for other departments of State government,
and it is with that possibility in mind that I
submit this report to you. "

Outlining the Department's action.since the
‘FEPC last spring cleared the agency of unsupported
discrimination charges, Mackie disclosed that:

 

127Ibid.

128Letter Of John C. Mackie to Alex Fuller, September 8,

1961, carbon cOpy in files of executive division, MSHD.

83

A formal directive has been issued to all High-
way Department employes spelling out the non-dis-
crimination employment policy.

A written policy of "no retaliation" has been
issued to protect employes who might bring charges
of discrimination.

A program has been instituted to orient and
train supervisors at all levels in the philosophy,
operations and techniques of merit employment.

Non-discrimination clauses, now part of all
Highway Department contracts, are being discussed
with representatives of Michigan's road-building
industry.

Promotional potential rating procedures are being
reviewed and reappraised to insure they are consistent
with Civil Service provisions.

Recruiting practices have been reviewed to insure
that all qualified persons, regardless of race or
national origin, are urged to apply for State High-
way Department employment.

District Office managers have been instructed
to work with local leadership in communities where,
housing and public accommodations present hard-
ships tO certain employes.

Anti-discrimination posters and Gov. John B.
Swainson's Code of Fair Practices have been dis-
tributed to every Highway Department Office in the
state.

"In addition, Mr. Albert Kaufman, of the High-
way Department, made a 1,500-mi1e trip through the
State visiting district Offices and discussing
problems of discrimination generally," Commissioner
Mackie told the FEPC. {

"He reviewed with each senior district engineer
and office manager the Department's antigdiscrimi-
nation policy, emphasizing the equal treatment
provision, mgardless of race, color, creed or
national origin.

"Problems of housing and eating for Negro employes
and the Department's Obligations in these were also
discussed."

The MSHD public information Officer telephoned the
Michigan Chronicle to suggest that the Mackie report be pre-
sented by him personally to the newspaper and that a picture
be taken of this presentation. The newspaper agreed and its
September 16 issue carried a picture of Mackie and Wartman

with a story based on the September 13 release. Kaufman,

an

having worked with the Detroit Courier reporter on that news-

 

paper's August series, delivered the Mackie report personally

there e 1'29

Five hundred copies of the Mackie report were mailed
to governmental, political, and Negro community leaders both
in Michigan and in other parts of the country. Included in
this mailing were Michigan congressmen, selected Officials
of the Kennedy Administration, and members of the united
States Commission on Civil Rights established by President
Eisenhower. In Michigan, the report went to Negro Legis-
lators and to chairmen of major legislative committees,
Republicans in each case because Of the Republican majority
in the legislature; to heads Of major state agencies, to
N.A.A.C.P. branch officers, to leaders of industries involved
in highway construction, to leaders Of local community
relations organizations. Leaders of major labor organizations,
Urban League leaders and persons who during the course of the
eight months had written the highway department in criticism
or defense were included in the mailing.130

Commendations to Mackie and the MSHD top.management
flowed back. In letters far more than routinely commendatory,
state and national figures praised Mackie's effort. Included
was one from Hobart Taylor for the President's Committee on
Equal Employment Opportunity. Taylor praised Mackie's over-

all handling Of the affair and said: "I think the action

 

129Interview with Kaufman, March 15a 1952-

laolbid.

 

85

that you have taken will certainly serve as a model of other
departments of our state government . . ."131

James Robinson, capitol reporter for the Detroit Free
23:21 put the frosting on the cake of.success in his signed
column on page five of section B, the magazine section, on
September 17, 1961. The column was headed:

Mackie the Star

And it contained such paragraphs as these:

LANSING-—Highway Commissioner John C. Mackie's
action in the area of racial discrimination is an
excellent example of why Michigan Democrats look
upon him as their political star of the future.

Mackie, whose main job is building roads, got
into the racial field early this year after Negro
Rep. Roger Townsend (D., Flint) accused his depart- ’
ment of practicing discrimination in hiring and
promotions.

The highway commissioner was amazed and shocked
that such a charge would be made.

His reaction, however, was typical of Mackie.
There were no angry denials or shouts of political
trickery. Mackie simply called for a full and
open investigation of the department's record. If
there was anything wrong, he wanted to know it.

It would have been easy to forget the FEPC
report once the April election Had returned Mackie
to office with an overwhelming majority.

But that isn't Mackie's method. He followed
through on the FEPC recommendations and even
expanded them.

The result is the most complete indoctrination
any State department ever received on the need for
‘ non-discrimination in employment. Supervisors and
contractors are being trained and educated in the

philosophy of merit employment.

Negro employes are now encouraged to bring
their problems to Mackie' 3 Office and they are
guaranteed there will be no retaliation from the
supervisors.

As yet, Mackie has given no indication of further
political ambition. But the road is clearly open
to him-~and it is a high-speed expressway.

 

131Letter of Hobart Taylor to John C. Mackie,
September 22, 1961, in files of executive division, MSHD.

86

The agency had set out to prevent an accusatory
resolution, which eventually died in committee, from flaring
into a long series of charges and countercharges. It had
sought to prevent unevaluated assertions making press head-
lines from a legislative forum. It had sought to defend its
integrity as an agency in order to maintain employe morale.
It had tried to maintain relationships advantageous to its
future with support groups, other governmental Officials,
and legislators generally. It had set out to turn the
attack into an advantage. And Mackie had the further personal
aim, inseparable in the flow of events from the governmental
activities,-of preventing the accusation from deflecting
the political campaign away from the highway construction
record into the "pit's much mire"132 of a debate on whether
he was or was not guilty of discrimination.

The agency and Mackie succeeded on all counts.

 

, 132Robert Browning, The Poems of Robert'Browning
(New York: Thomas S. CrowellCo.,1901).

IV. EVALUATION

The events set in motion by the January 17 resolution
brought into play judgments and procedures involving politi-
cal science, public administration, journalism, and com-
munication arts. The permeating judgment, which informed
the controlling decisions, was based on an awareness of the
interacting relationships Of public relations, public Opinion,
public administration, and public policy. There is little
in the way of formal studies which attempts to show in a
microcosm of on-going events how this interweaving affects
the actions of leadership in government and politics.

Paul H. Appleby calls this judgment ”governmental
sense“ and he sees it as an essential qualification Of top

management in government.

The second quality needed by the tOp executive
is "governmental sense," the ingrained disposition
to put the public interest first. . . .

Related to governmental sense is . . . public
relations or political sense. This involves on
the one hand, an a preciation for the necess1ty
for government Officials and governmental action to
be exposed to the citizens and the public affected
by them and, on the other hand, an ability to antici-
pateiprobable popular reaction and to make allowance

orteeee

To organize for or to stimulate and support
organized efforts for getting integrated action
that will be acceptable to the public is the job
of administration at its highest level.1

3

1Paul H. Appleby,B ig Democracy (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1985), De ”3e

87

88
In the case record of this thesis, the administrator

was both a governmental and political person. Mackie arrived
at his position as chief executive of the highway department
by the process of a partisan political election. What
Appleby says of the governmental executive is reinforced by
the observation of Marver H. Bernstein:

Unless the political executive . . . cultivates

an ability to anticipate popular reaction . . . his
effectiveness on the job may be sharply limited and
his survival potential minimal.

The instinct for survival, both in the agency as an
institution and in the top management which heads it, is a
strong force in government. The attack by the legislators
on Mackie and the highway department brought forth that
instinct for self-survival. It is true that the resolution
did not call for the abolition of the MSHD nor for its merger
with other departments; nor did the resolution seek to
abolish the office of highway commissioner as an elective
position, which the legislature could do because this position
was created as an elective Office by the legislature in 1909.3
It is not a constitutional office. Yet the resolution was
an attack upon the integrity of the agency in its employment
policy, and it was a political attack which conceivably could
threaten the election not three months away.

The resolution was looked upon by tOp management as‘

a move which might, unless turned aside, bring upon the .

 

. 2Marver H. Bernstein, The Job of the Federal Execu-
tive (Washington, D. C.: The Brookings Inst1tut1on, 18585 p. 28.

3Michigan, Public Acts: Session of 1909, Act 183.

89

highway department an unfavorable reaction from the various
publics to which the agency looked for approval and support..

Here again was a public relations factor. Fritz Morstein

Marx describes it this way:

Beyond its decisions in particular cases, the
long-range task of an administrative agency is a
public relations problem. The job is to transform
a public policy, which originally is only a string
of words in a statute book or in a directive, from
a purely verbal expression into a pattern of public
acceptance . . . the long-range justification of an
administrative agency will depend in large measure
upon its success in establishing a favorable reaction
to its basic policies and its normal methods of
Operation.“

If this is so, and it appears to be, then a govern-
ment agency has a right to defend itself if attacked; or at
least a right to keep the public informed of facts which
might be important in forming a correct and just public
Opinion. Some authorities see this as more than a right:

It is the duty as well as the right of a depart-

mental head . . . to answer his critics and to
justify himself to the peOple. Under a parliamentary
system the parliament would be the main . ... forum
in which he would meet his critics. . . . In the
United States, he must rely mainly on the press.5

This reliance on the press, as Pimlott describes it, '
makes a journalistic judgment often the controlling judgment

of how the agency is to_proceed, and in what language is

the procedure to be_presented. The determinations of the

 

”Fritz Morstein Marx, Elements of Public Adminis-
‘tration (New York: Prentice-Hall, 19H6), p. 376.

5J. A. R. Pimlott, Public Relations and American

Democracy (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1951),
p. Que

90

"do thing” which makes the news,6 and how shall it be
released are considerations of great importance in govern-
ment. If done without care and skill, the desired result
may not only be frustrated, but also the agency and its chief
executive may end up in a worsened public relations situation.

In this study the "do thing" was the agency's action
to have itself investigated.. The mechanism was a letter to
the chairman of the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
The release took place by sending a copy of the letter to
the capitol press room. This sequence reflects the perme-
ation of journalistic judgment into an act of public adminis-
tration greatly imbued with public interest and potentially
impOFtant to public policy. The release did not have to be
made in this manner.- Mackie, for example, could have called
a press conference and subjected himself at the outset to!
a cross examination on highway department personnel practices.
It was a public relations decision based on a knowledge of
newspaper reporting that Mackie should not do this, because
a press conference might divert the story into unpredictable
channels and away from.the single point the agency wanted to
make: that it was asking for an investigation of itself by
the agency set up in law specifically to handle charges of

discrimination in employment. The agency put no barriers in

*7'

_ 6"Paul weber taught me that to get an idea across,
don't 22! something. DO something. The press can quote your
words or not, as they will. ‘But if you do something, they
have to report it." [Italics his.) G. Mennen Williams, A
Governor's Notes (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, -
Institute of’PfiElie Administration, 1961), p. us.

91
the way of any reporter who might have wanted to question

Mackie or his staff. But neither did the agency go out of
its way to invite cross-examination at the outset. It was
not until the FEPC investigation was underway that Mackie
deliberately made himself available for interview; and he
chose the newspaper which would reach the audience he was
most concerned with at that time, the Michigan Chronicle and
its Detroit area Negro readership. This, too, was a journal-
istic judgment, intimately interrelated to the whole pattern
of agency moves.

Without any formal review of the question, Mackie and
his staff would have agreed that ”the modern newspaper is
the most important medium of communication for the distri-
bution of news and opinions to large publics.”7

The two top persons in public information work for
the highway department both are former reporters, both well-
trained in what makes news. Mackie respects this training
and works closely with his press aides.

In December, 1960, at a meeting of the American
Association of State Highway Officials in the Sheraton?
Cadillac Hotel, Detroit, Mackie gave a challenging statement.
of the peOple's right to know. He said:

We are spending public money. We are making

public policy. Our work therefore, should always
be carried on with a full respect for the public's

right to know what we are doing, and why we are doing
it.

 

7William Albig, Modern Public Opinion (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1956), p. 589.

92

Open access to public information therefore is
more than just a desirable goal in a democracy.

It is the right of the people in a democracy.
The peOple's right to know how their public
officials are discharging the responsibilities of
public Office is a basic right in our democratic
way of government.3

But the people are not informed by chance, and as the
complexity of government has increased, the number of special-
ists in journalism, public relations, or communications em-
plOyed by government has also increased.

There are Opinions about public relations which
imply that it is a conspiracy to dupe the public
and to keep the facts from it. But the facts
about public relations are otherwise. One of the
most significant facets of contemporary American
society is the vitality and the articulateness of
public opinion. There is a desire for an informed
public opinion because the communications media,
which are essential to public relations, have
created this need. And conversely, it is significant
that public relations techniques reach the public
almost exclusively by means of these very media of
communication. A free press and responsible public
relations both contribute toward making public
opinion the most powerful force in our democratic
society. Public opinion and the media of communi-
cation interact on one another.9:

Zechariah Chafee, Jr., makes somewhat the same point,
and adds to it a description of the expanding role of govern-
ment public relations officers. Both references are quo-
tations from sources he does not identify.

The fact that, with the passage of years, the

government itself has become an even greater par-
ticipant in social and economic affairs has created

 

3M8 c0py of speech by John C. Mackie, December 7,
1961, Detroit, in files of executive division, MSHD.

9Charles S. Steinberg, The Mass Communicators:
Public Relations, Public_9pinionl_and Mass Media (New York:
Harper 6 Bros., 19581, p. 87.

 

93

a necessity for better intercommunication between
it and the public in the interests of both.

And later, in the same volume, he writes:

The government publicity man . . . is no longer
just a newspaperman or a ublicity man who has
happened to become a public servant. He is a new
kind of public servant, somebody who combines his
profession with a very special experience.

Herbert Brucker treats this so-called ”new kind of
public servant" with mild contempt. He calls them ”ministers
of popular enlightenment" and says that "government . . .
employs publicity men by the thousands.”

The United States is the world's most fertile

breeding ground of press agents, publicity men,
vice presidents in charge of information, and
counsellors on public relations, who have no other
purpose than to alter our migtal worlds in the
interests of their clients.

Whether government agencies should be interested in
making public Opinion is an unsettled question; but that
government agencies do in fact seek to create and maintain
a favorable public Opinion is self-evident. It is true that
an agency can passively wait for the periodic call from news-
paper reporters in order to carry out the right-to-know
policy which Mackie enunciated at the AASHO meeting. In
fact, however, there are not enough capitol reporters to
cover every state government story from raw data to final

release.

 

. 10Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Government and Mass Communi-
cations, Vol. II (Chicago: Univeriity_3f'th1cago Press, 19u7),
pp. 723, 788.

 

11Herbert Brucker, Freedom of Information (New York:
Macmillan Co., l9u9), p. 138.

9“
In the MSHD, at contract lettings almost monthly,
one public information Officer spends full time for two

consecutive days organizing into useful form for reporters

the data on the bidding on highway contracts. A highway

building announcement is frequently the banner story for the
day. If the agency passively waited for its news to be dug
out by reporters, rather than actively serviced the newspaper
reporters with news announcements, it is unlikely that the
public would be as well informed as it now is. The MSHD
issued 1,036 news releases in 1961, and serviced several
hundred magazine inquiries. The agency filed more than
10,000 clippings on straight highway news issued by the depart-
ment itself and used in Michigan newspapers.12

Does servicing the press with factual information
prepared in news form involve ”engineering the public's

consent” as Edward L. Bernays claims:

Any person or organization depends on public
approval and is therefore faced with the problem of
engineering the public' 8 consent to a program or
goal. We expect our elected government officials
to try to engineer our consent through the network
of communications open to them for the measures
they propose. We reject government authoritarianism
or regimentation, but we are willing to be ersuaded
by the written or the spoken word.' The eng1neering
of consent is the very essence of the democratic
process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.

The freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly,
the freedoms that make the engineerings Of consent
possible, are among the most cherished guarantees

Of the Constitution of the United States. ... .

In certain cases, democratic leaders must play .

 

12Interview with Farrell, March'12, 1952.

95

their part in leading the public through the engi-
neering of consent to socially constructive goals
and values.13

Bernay's embellishment Of public relations into the

sine qua non of democratic government is an interesting

 

hyperbole, deserving perhaps a separate thesis to analyze.
Bernay's comments are included in this evaluation because he
-does say something of value about the infusion of public
relations into public administration in the formation of
public policy. Performed with integrity and respect for
the democratic process, the skills of public relations can
help democracy by helping to keep the electorate accurately
informed.

In the case record of this thesis, one of the motives
for the actions initiated by the agency was a fear that the
electorate would not be accurately informed through the
mechanism Of legislative investigation.

The methods employed by these committees (i.e.

legislative committees) are not the same if the

Object is fact finding as they are if the purpose

is punitive exposure. . . . In punitive investi-
gations, the "investigation" is frequently not

unlike that of a public prosecutor . . . the questions
are thrown at the reapondent . . . the camera bulbs
flash the newsmen rush to their wires, and another
name is made.1

Rather than risk this, the agency introduced an expert

witness into the case (the FEPC) to divert the legislators'

13Edward L. Bernays, Public Relations (Norman:
University. of Oklahoma Press, 1952), pp. 159-60.

1“James C. Charlesworth Government Administration
(New York: Harper 6 Bros., 19515,W pp. -5.

96
move without frontal counterattack. Norman J. Powell speaks
highly of this technique:

Defense should be in as positive terms as possible

‘ and issued by an agency other than the one attacked--
preferably an individual or group with prestige . . .

z where the accusation is an isolated instance Of
criticism in a generally favorable community senti-
'mcnt and comment, it is desirable to accompany silence
on the accusation with action related to the charge
brought.15

Powell also comments that "Opinions showed sharp
changes when objective events took place, not when speeches
were made,”16 a remark which supports the “do things" lesson
former Governor Williams reports learning from Paul Weber,
his press secretary for eleven years.

In the flow of on-going events, the agency depended
on staff judgments based on governmental and political
experience. When a legislator accuses an executive of improper
conduct, there is no time to make a survey of public Opinion
before answering. The assessment of what to do and when to
do it must be made quickly. The reaction, therefore, is not
based on science or scholarship, on a full public Opinion
survey Of popular response to different courses of conduct,
or on a digest of scholarly Opinion in the field. This is
not to say that public opinion surveys and scholarly research
are valueless. It is to say that the day-to-day actions and

reactions Of an agency under attack depends on experiential

rather than scholarly judgments..

15Norman J. Powell, Anatomy of Public Opinion (New York:
Prentice-Hall, 1951), p. #65.

161bid., p. use.

97
The public Opinion judgements that entered into this

case were based on the newspaper play of the relevant stories;
on conversations with public and political Officials friendly
to Mackie; and on conversations with reporters.

The press undoubtedly influences government not
because the people read the newspapers, but because govern-
ment Officials read newspapers and try to assess the people's
reaction to the news item; and the government officials then
react according to this assessment. ”The immediate deter-
minants of Opinion are the channels of communication and what
comes through them-~the ideas, reports, news, and represen-
tations that constitute our world of verbal symbols," says
Harwood L.‘ Childsel7 ‘ .

It was in judging what would go through those channels
’with maximum effectiveness that made public relations so
intrinsic a part of the agency's actions in the events
following on the January situation.

Herbert H. Baus exaggerates this role as does Bernays,
but he says something of value in this comment:

MOst of the things of which public relations

are made are not new. What is new is the system
of thinking and conduct being assembled under

the term, public relations. ~Just as medicine, fOr
example, is a combination of chemistry, human
understanding, biolo y, psychiatry, and a variety

of other knowledges nto a system of healing,
public relations is a combination Of philosophy,

 

17Harwood L. Childs, An.Introduction.to Public
Opinion (New York: John Wiley 5 Sons, 1980), p. 67.

98

Sociology, economics, language, psychology, journal-
ism, communication . . . 3

The mixing of political considerations into the
governmental actions in the January to April events reflected
more than the political and governmental identities simul-
taneously worn by Mackie. Whether the chief administrator
is himself in politics formally, he and his agency must be
aware of political realities. "In a democratic government,"
White says "political parties are an essential agency for
the formulation and expression of public opinion . . . in
the American system, parties have always been closely
associated with administration."19

When a series of events are examined in the detail
of this thesis, it is easy for a distortion of proportion
to be left on the reader. The issue did not overwhelm the
agency. The day-to-day work of the agency continued to
receive full attention and the actions involving the dis-
crimination charge were merged into the routine.

' The threat to the agency was a threat from the out-'
side in the sense that it came from legislators, but it was
not completely outside in the sense that it came from others
Operating in the same general government in thesame city.
It was not an attack by an American Medical Association on

a Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The organi-

zational behavior of the agency was not detoured, distracted

 

18Herbert M. Baus, Public Relations at Work (New York:
Harper 8 Bros., 19u8), p. 2.

19White, p. 13.

a.“

.I I'

99
or impaired. The institutional behavior Of tOp management
was altered in that it became extremely cautious about any
personnel questions involving Negroes and about relation—
ships with Negro legislators. For example, a greater
'emphasis was placed on making memoranda about any contacts
with Negro legislators, on any subject, however trivial.
Job applications and promotional registers involving Negroes
were reviewed with great care. Any employment difficulty
with a Negro was given top priority handling.

Purists might say that some of these reactions were
a kind Of reverse discrimination, but top management in this
instance at least was not impressed with philosophical dis-
tinctions. Keeping the initial attack from growing in
dimensions--governmental or politica1--was the continuous
focus of attention.

The agency had a number of choices open to it in
reaction to the accusation. It could capitulate to the
charge, promise to reform, and ask the initiating legislators
to set up a watch-dog committee to police the agency. Since
Mackie and his policy staff felt that the accusation of dis-
crimination was not justified, this possibility was not
seriously considered. It was brought up only as a theoreti-
cal possibility. Even as a theoretical possibility, it was
judged deficient because of its probably effect on secondary
administrative personnel, who might justly feel, if the
agency capitulated, that they were being deserted by the

chief executive. Another countermove would have been to

100

attack the initiating legislators, accusing them of a politi-
cal smear designed to aid the opposition party in the coming
election. This was dismissed as being tOO disruptive of
party harmony on the eve of a general election. .AnOther
course would have been to do nothing, let the legislative
investigation take place, and see what developed over time.
This was dismissed by Mackie and his staff because it pre-
sented the danger that disgruntled former employes and
'complainers of all kinds would have a forum to make unwarrant-
ed charges, and constant press attention.

Another choice was for the agency itself to act
affirmatively.

It did so, and this narrative tells the result.

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109

. Michigan Journal of the House of Representatives.
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1951.

 

. Michigan Declaration. Lansing: 1956.

\

Articles in Periodicals

' The Detroit Courier. January-September, 1961.

The Detroit Free-Press. January-March, September, 1961.

The Detroit News. January-March, September, 1961.

The Flint Journal. January-March, September, 1961.

The Grand Rapids Press. January-March, September, 1961.

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The Saginaw News. January-March, September, 1961.

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45.

43..“

‘ ...,

 

H".

105
Author's Interviews

Office of the Attorney General, Lansing. Interview with
James A. Andrews, Assistant Attorney General,
State of Michigan. March 7, 1962.

Democratic Party. Interview with Neil Staebler, Democratic
National Committeeman for Michigan. Ann Arbor,
June 6, 1962.

. Interview with William Schwartz, Democratic Party
Chairman for Genesee County, Michigan. Flint,
April 5, 1951. .

Executive Office of the State of Michigan, Lansing. Interview
with Richard L. Miller, Administrative Assistant to
Governor John B. Swainson. April 3, 1962.

Michigan State Highway Department. Interview with Howard B.
Hill, Managing Director, Michigan State Highway
. Department. Lansing, March 15,1962.

. Interview with Al Kaufman, Administrative Assistant,
Michigan State Highway Department, Lansing, March 15,
1962.

. Interview with John C. Mackie, Michigan State Highway
Commissioner. Lansing, March 12, 1962.

. Interview with John Overhouse, Training Officer,
Personnel Division, Michigan State Highway Department.
Lansing, May n, 1962.

 

. Interview with Richard A. Ross, Personnel Director,
Michigan State Highway Department. Lansing, February 2,
1962.

 

. Interview with Irving J. Rubin, Executive Assistant,
Michigan State Highway Department. Detroit, February 13,
1962. .

. Interview with Frederick E. Tripp, Director for .
Administration, Michigan State Highway Department.
Lansing, March 15, 1962.

. Interview with Thomas J. Farrell, Public Information
Officer, Michigan State Highway Department. Lansing,

 

March 12,1962.